


You Say You Want a Revolution

by kjack89, satb31



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1960s, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Vietnam, Anti-War Movement, Bombing, Developing Relationship, Drug Abuse, Friends With Benefits, Implied/Referenced Sex, Implied/Referenced Violence, M/M, Marijuana, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Police Brutality, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protests, Recreational Drug Use, Rehabilitation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-22
Updated: 2014-03-12
Packaged: 2018-01-09 16:00:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 34,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1147909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kjack89/pseuds/kjack89, https://archiveofourown.org/users/satb31/pseuds/satb31
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Les Amis de l'ABC is an anti-Vietnam War student protest group in the late 1960s, when the draft and turmoil on college campuses force more radical - and violent - actions, including actions that cannot be undone and will forever change the lives of those involved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic began as a conversation between the two co-authors, one of whom expressed an interest in an E/R fic set in the Vietnam era. As both of us have degrees from large Midwestern universities that saw a good deal of turmoil and violence in the 1960s and 1970s, we were fascinated by the question: what would a group like Les Amis look like in this time period? The result is this fic. All historical inaccuracies are ours and ours alone.
> 
> Starts in September, 1967.
> 
> Usual disclaimer: We own nothing but our typos. Title is from the Beatles song.

“ _Dear Enjolras and everyone,_

_Sorry for the short letter, but it looks like we’re shipping out sooner than expected. I don’t know how many letters I’ll be able to send from ‘Nam, so I wanted to send you all something now._

_Not much has happened recently besides finding out that I’ll get a pay bump when we land in ‘Nam. Which means I’ll be making more than twice what I was back home, and so far, I haven’t done much more than play a lot of cards with the guys and drink a lot of beer. Maybe getting drafted wasn’t the worst thing that could’ve happened to me. And hey, maybe I’ll even be able to go to college when I get out!_

_Anyway, all my love to everyone. Keep fighting the good fight, and I’ll see you when I’m out._

_—Feuilly_ ”

Enjolras had read the letter in his hand so many times that he probably could’ve recited it from memory; as it was, reading it yet another time did nothing more than cause his fingers to clench involuntarily against the paper, rage pounding through his veins. It had been over three weeks since Feuilly had shipped out for Vietnam, for a war that made no sense, least of all to those involved, and Enjolras’s anger over the situation had only grown with time.

He just couldn’t understand why Feuilly, smart, sharp, witty Feuilly who wanted nothing more than to go to school and get an education, was instead sent off to possibly die just because he couldn’t afford the college enrollment that would guarantee his deferment. And what was worse is that their efforts seemed to be getting  _nowhere_.

Sure, people were pissed off, but that hadn’t stopped the draft, and it sure as hell hadn’t stopped the body count, which was only getting higher. And here he was, safe and secure, getting a college degree while his friend could be dying.

It made his blood  _boil_.

And just about the only thing that could calm him down was the comforting hand that touched his shoulder and the gentle, steady voice that said softly, “Enjolras. You’ll ruin the letter if you keep that up.”

Enjolras instantly relaxed and turned around to face his oldest friend, Combeferre, whose brow was furrowed in concern. “Sorry,” Enjolras said, willing his fingers to uncurl, to let the letter slip to the table in the back room of the Musain, the bar in which they held the meetings of Les Amis de l’ABC, their student protest group.

Courfeyrac had come up with the name, spectacularly drunk and more than a little stoned one day, sitting in the grass on the quad. “The friends of the Abased,” he had said, nodding sagely, joint burning between his fingers. “Only we’ll do it in French, in solidarity with the innocent Vietnamese citizens.”

Though Enjolras had frowned at him and pointed out that if they were trying to claim solidarity with the Vietnamese people, doing so in the language of their colonizers didn’t make a lot of sense, he had been overruled by Combeferre, who liked the pun (and had been a little high himself). And now the name had just stuck.

Just as the Musain had stuck as their meeting location.

Courfeyrac had been the one to find that as well, back during their freshman year, but this time Enjolras had been the one to decide on it as a permanent location. He had enjoyed the casual atmosphere, that it had a reputation as a gay bar, which they all appreciated, and the fact that it was far enough out of the way to keep most of the undergrads away, and besides, the bartender let everyone smoke and didn’t complain when Enjolras just ordered water for five hours straight.

Which was why they were here now, meeting late at night to finish plans for their rally the next day, when they would be demonstrating on the administration building’s steps, rallying the anti-war effort on campus, particularly with Dow Chemical, the makers of the napalm that had devastated innocent civilians in Vietnam, coming to recruit on campus soon.

They were supposed to be going over the plan once more, but now that Enjolras had set the letter down and looked up, he realized that Courfeyrac was not with Combeferre, and while he had certainly had other things on his mind, he frowned at Combeferre nonetheless. “Where’s Courf?”

“I don’t know,” Combeferre said, sitting down across from Enjolras, scratching at his chin and at the scraggly beard he was growing (nothing compared to Courfeyrac’s particularly hippy-length hair and braids, but regardless, a different look that Enjolras was still getting used to, and he was still trying to decide if he liked it). “He didn’t come with me.”

Enjolras’s scowl deepened. “Doesn’t he know how important this is?” he snapped, his ire aimed at Combeferre only because he was there. “Doesn’t he realize—”

Combeferre touched Enjolras’s hand gently. “I’m sure he does. But in the meantime, you and I can get started on reviewing the plans for tomorrow, alright? He’ll get here when he gets here.”

Taking a deep breath, Enjolras nodded, knowing that Combeferre was just as impatient and fired up as he was — though Combeferre had an eternal patience when it came to their friends that Enjolras seemed to lack — and so they may as well get to it. He pulled some papers out of his bag and they set down to it.

Fifteen minutes later, Courfeyrac strolled in, grinning broadly at both of them. Before he even spoke, Enjolras asked coldly, “Were you out on a date?”

“Good to see you, too,” Courfeyrac said cheerfully, dropping into the chair on Enjolras’s other side. “I actually had a meeting with a professor, and one that’s sympathetic to our cause, but I suppose that’s kind of a date, right?”

Enjolras just sighed and shook his head, bending over the papers. Combeferre raised an eyebrow at Courfeyrac, who just grinned and mouthed, “I was on a date.”

Combeferre shook his head and sighed in the heavy way that communicated, in only the kind of shorthand that existed between old friends, “Enjolras is going to kill you.” Courfeyrac laughed and pulled a joint from his pocket, lighting it and inhaling slowly. “Make love, not war, man,” Courfeyrac said, grinning. “Make love, not war.”

* * *

 

“I wish you wouldn’t go today,” Bossuet said, lying back against the headboard of his twin bed and pulling the bedspread up to his chin.

“It will be fine,” Joly reassured his boyfriend as he sat on the edge of the bed and tied on his sneakers. “It’s just a rally – I don’t think Enjolras or anyone is planning to chain themselves to a building or get themselves arrested or anything. Besides, I told Combeferre I’d be there.”

Bossuet sighed. “I wish you wouldn’t listen to Combeferre, Jolllly. He’s way too radical – he scares the shit out of me.”

Joly laughed lightly, patting Bossuet’s knee. “You’re just jealous,” he teased, leaning in to kiss him on the lips.

Bossuet ducked his head away from the kiss. “Maybe. I mean, you do spend more time with Ferre than you do with me. But since Feuilly left, he’s changed, man. I can’t put my finger on it, but –“

Joly pulled away from Bossuet and looked at him sternly, his green eyes narrowing. “First of all, we’re studying, not fucking. And secondly, doesn’t it piss you off that Feuilly has to go fight that stupid fucking war just because he can’t afford to get a deferment?”

“Of course,” Bossuet said, slightly taken aback by Joly’s sudden anger. “But there are ways to fix this without violence, Joly.”

Joly rose from the bed and went over to the mirror, combing his fingers through his hair and smoothing his beard.  “Like how? Pass a few useless resolutions?”

“Like getting better politicians elected,” Bossuet said. “Like getting rid of LBJ in ‘68?”

Joly sighed impatiently as he picked up his keys and his wallet and shoved them into his jeans pockets. “Why don’t you come with me, Bossuet? You might learn something.”

Bossuet shook his head. “Nah, man. I’ve got briefs to write, and Musichetta’s coming over later. And besides, with my luck, I‘ll get arrested and then I’ll never get admitted to the bar next year.”

“Suit yourself,” Joly said, his mouth tightening. “See you at the Musain later?”

Shaking his head again, Bossuet said noncommittally, “We’ll see.”

Joly shrugged and stalked out of Bossuet’s second floor apartment, clattering down the stairs and out into the sunny September afternoon.

They had been a couple for almost two years now, dating back to the first year they’d both arrived at the university for their graduate work – Bossuet in law school, Joly in medical school. They’d met at the Musain, of course, and their connection was instantaneous – and resulted in a lascivious evening back at Joly’s tiny studio near the football stadium – and as they spent more time together, their shared cheerfulness and their individual neuroses made them a good complement to each other. Joly would help Bossuet out whenever he found himself locked out of his apartment for forgetting to pay his rent, while Bossuet would sit by Joly’s bedside when one of his migraines struck, rubbing his temples and bringing him aspirin.

But things were changing.

The political situation certainly wasn’t helping their relationship, Joly was coming to realize.  As he immersed himself further and further into the legal system, Bossuet had become engrossed in the power of the law. He was interested in politics, and found himself working for a Democratic legislator who had absolutely convinced him that the system worked. Joly suspected that Bossuet himself wanted to run for office one day.

And a gay lover certainly wasn’t going to help him with those ambitions, which explained the more frequent visits from Musichetta, who worked with him at the legislature.

For his part, Joly was moving in the other direction – the consequence of a summer spent in the rural South, volunteering at a small clinic. The experience was a revelation to the young man who had grown up in the prosperous air of a Midwestern college town, where his father was a professor. In the South Joly saw the desperate poverty, the substandard schools, the lack of basic medical care. He also saw young men who had no way to escape the meat grinder of Vietnam, who could not simply enroll in college and get their deferments.

“The entire system is corrupt,” Joly had said to Combeferre, his friend and medical school colleague, during one of their study sessions that so frequently turned to heated shouting sessions over the injustices of American society.  

“Then we need to change the system,” Combeferre had replied, his blue eyes aflame.

Les Amis was the first step in the process, Combeferre had explained to him excitedly after class two days ago, when he invited Joly to come to their first rally. Joly had noticed a subtle shift in his friend’s attitudes since Feuilly had shipped out – he was no longer content just to rant and rave.

Combeferre craved action.

And Joly wanted in.

* * *

 

The light was bright coming through the broken blinds and Grantaire groaned as he rolled over, his arm trapped underneath someone’s sleeping body in an apartment he didn’t recognize. “Fuck,” he groaned, at the stabbing pain in his head. He managed to ease his arm out from under the girl sleeping next to him, whose name he couldn’t remember and whose apartment he was assumedly in, and sat up.

He couldn’t remember what day it was, let alone if he was supposed to have class today (not that he would’ve gone anyway, but he still liked to know what classes he was blowing off); the last thing he could remember was drinking and smoking and kissing someone against the bar. He didn’t even know if the girl in the bed was the same person he’d been kissing.

It didn’t matter much anyway, just another in a long string of nights that he didn’t really remember which seemed to make up half his college career. He’d say that his father would be disappointed in him, but that required his father to actually give a damn, and since Grantaire was half-assing his way through an art degree, his father didn’t seem to really care what his son did so long as he didn’t have to hear about it.

Grantaire got out of bed as silently as he could, considering he tripped over the blankets on his way up, but whatever he’d been drinking and smoking, it seemed the girl had been drinking and smoking just as much, since all she did was snore louder. Once out of bed, he grabbed his bag off the floor and checked to make sure his sketchbook was inside, grabbed the girl’s bag of pot from where she had left it on the table, and sneaked out, heading to the quad where he could hopefully relax and smoke and draw a little until he at least figured out what day it was.

Instead, when he got to the quad and got settled with his back against a big tree, sitting comfortably with his sketchbook in his lap, he made the mistake of looking up, and he saw the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his life.

It — he — was a man, a gorgeous blond wearing a bright red coat and talking to a dark-haired guy, and he looked up, his eyes meeting Grantaire’s, and the pen in Grantaire’s hand fell to the ground because in that moment, he was in love.

The blond looked away in another instant, but Grantaire couldn’t stop staring at him. Well, that was one way to spend his afternoon, since the blond didn’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon, and Grantaire certainly wasn’t about to either.

Then within a short time a crowd had gathered, some bearing protest signs and beads, the hallmarks of the antiestablishment crowd, and the blond stood on the steps, shouting some kind of anti-war slogan, and Grantaire  _swooned_. As beautiful as the man had been at first glance, it was nothing compared to now, with his fist high in the air, trembling from rage and passion, his blond hair like a lion’s mane around his beautiful, fierce face.

Of course it was Grantaire’s luck that the man also spoke beautifully with eloquent, cutting words that transcended the normal bullshit spouted by the usual protesters Grantaire tried his best to ignore. For a moment, just one moment, Grantaire almost believed the words the guy was saying.

And even if Grantaire didn’t believe him, the guy sure as hell looked damn pretty saying them.

He lit a joint with trembling fingers and inhaled deeply before grabbing his pen and flipping his sketchbook open, keeping one eye on the blond the entire time. He had never felt this inspired.

* * *

 

When Joly arrived at the quad, the rally was already underway – Combeferre and Courfeyrac were standing on the steps of the administration building, listening to Enjolras address the crowd. Joly pushed his way to the front of the crowd and caught Combeferre’s eye, giving him a thumbs up.

When Enjolras was finished, it was Combeferre’s turn – his voice quieter than Enjolras’s but resolute as he described the horrors of the war and denounced the politicians who perpetuated it. His voice grew louder as he outlined, point by point, the unconstitutionality of the war.

And then he began to speak about Feuilly, about his love of learning, of beauty, his commitment to issues of global poverty and post-colonialism — and how it was all being wasted fighting a war thousands of miles away, for reasons none of them could understand.

“Feuilly deserves better,” Combeferre said, his voice cracking slightly as he uttered his friend’s name. “This nation deserves better,” he intoned.

The crowd applauded his speech wildly, exploding into a chant of “1, 2, 3, 4, We don’t want this fucking war.”

After more speeches – a speech full of callouts and audience participation from Courfeyrac, followed by a rousing call to action by Enjolras – the rally ended, and Combeferre descended the steps to join Joly. “Pretty amazing, right?” Combeferre said, squeezing Joly’s hand. His unshaven face was flushed, and his voice was hoarse from speaking.

“Absolutely,” Joly said with a grin. “I can’t believe how many people are here.”

Combeferre pushed a lock of blond hair out of his face and returned the smile.  “I’ve got a good feeling about this, man. A good, good feeling.” Combeferre was practically glowing. “Listen, I have to catch up with Courfeyrac to talk strategy – you want to grab dinner later?”

“Sure,” Joly said. “Corinthe at 7?”

“Sounds good,” Combeferre said. “We’ll drink to the revolution,” he said, clapping Joly on the shoulder before running to catch up with Courfeyrac.

Joly looked after him in wonder, his own passions aroused by his friend’s enthusiasm.

And Bossuet and his misgivings had been forgotten.

* * *

 

Grantaire bent over his sketchbook, hand a blur as he sketched, and he was so engrossed in what he was doing that he didn’t notice that the rally had ended, and didn’t even notice the person standing in front of him until he cleared his throat. “What are you drawing?”

Looking up, Grantaire’s mouth fell open, and he blinked in shock for a few minutes before croaking, “What?”

The beautiful revolutionary blond’s lips quirked, and he repeated, “What are you drawing? You were working on it throughout the rally, and I was…well, I was curious.”

His cheeks tinged with pink at that and Grantaire almost groaned out loud because it wasn’t  _fair_  for one person to be that gorgeous. “Um, it’s just a little cartoon,” Grantaire managed, still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that the blond had somehow noticed him. “I draw. Sometimes.”

He winced at how stupid the words sounded, but the blond didn’t seem to mind. “May I see it?”

Looking down at the drawing, Grantaire decided that it wasn’t as ridiculous as most of his scribbles, though admittedly the halo he’d drawn around the little blond figure was perhaps a bit much. Still, he silently handed the sketchbook over, and the blond looked at it for a long moment. Then he said, “You’re really good.”

“Sorry?” Grantaire said, unable to believe his ears.

The blond blushed a little but repeated steadily, “I think the drawing is really good.” He handed the sketchbook back and, after a brief hesitation, stuck his hand out. “I’m Enjolras, by the way.”

Grantaire shook his hand, trying not to let his touch linger as much as he wanted to. “Grantaire,” he volunteered. “I do, uh, cartoons, sometimes, for the school paper.”

“Well, I do rallies, sometimes,” Enjolras told him, smiling slightly. “For the betterment of humanity.”

Grantaire couldn’t help himself: he snorted and shook his head, and Enjolras’s smile faded. “You don’t believe in the betterment of humanity? You don’t believe in fighting against the war?”

Shaking his head, Grantaire shrugged. “I don’t believe in anything,” he said honestly.

Enjolras cocked his head slightly as he looked at Grantaire as if mulling over his words in his head. “I don’t believe that,” he said, finally. “In fact, I was wondering if you would consider doing some cartoons for our activist group.”

“Oh, I’m hardly radical enough for that,” Grantaire scoffed, closing his sketchbook and slipping it inside his bag. He stood, slinging his bag over his shoulder, and shrugged again. “You don’t want me for this, I promise.”

Half-smiling, Enjolras shook his head. “No, you’re exactly what I want.” He considered Grantaire for a long moment, then shrugged. “Look, you don’t have to come if you want, but we meet at the Musain most nights around eight. You should come anyway, even if you don’t want to do the cartoons.” His grin widened slightly and he ducked his head. “I’d like to see you there.”

Grantaire blushed slightly and ducked his head as well. “Well, we’ll see,” he muttered noncommittally, knowing for a fact that eight o’clock that night would find him at the Musain, probably in the corner, staring at Enjolras. He smiled slightly. “I'd have to try to summon some radicalism. 1, 2, 3, 4, we don’t want this fucking war; 5, 6, 7, 8, getting stoned is fucking great.”

Enjolras laughed and started to back away, shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his bell-bottoms as he did. “I look forward to seeing you there,” he called, almost running into someone as he continued walking backwards.

“I didn’t say I’d come!” Grantaire called after him, though he was grinning. Enjolras just shrugged and waved, and Grantaire groaned and dropped his head. Oh yeah. He’d definitely be at the Musain at 8 that night, and every night in the foreseeable future.

* * *

 

Joly and Combeferre’s dinner that night was a lengthy affair – the two aspiring doctors ran up an enormous tab over three hours, as they spoke loudly and enthusiastically about the rally and the possibilities inherent in the founding of Les Amis.

“We’re gonna change the fucking world, Joly,” Combeferre slurred, as they got up to leave after paying the sizeable bill.

“Ferre, you’re drunk,” Joly said, his own vision cloudy with wine and the vague possibilities of a new world.

“Take me home,” Combeferre implored as they staggered out the door of the restaurant. “I need to go to bed.”

Joly stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, bent over laughing as if that was the funniest joke he’d ever heard. “But whose bed?” he choked out.

“Yours, Jollllllly,” Combeferre said, drawing out the syllables in Joly’s name as he approached his friend, grasped him by the shoulder, and kissed him on the lips.

Joly recovered from his shock and returned the kiss, wrapping his arms around Combeferre’s waist and pulling him toward him, ignoring the shocked and disgusted looks a conservatively dressed middle-aged couple shot them as they passed.

And as they made their way through the city streets back to Joly’s apartment — and again when they woke up together the next morning, their limbs entangled and so hungover that the cries of Joly’s hungry cat sounded ten times louder than normal — Joly only knew one thing for certain.

Change, indeed, was going to come.


	2. Chapter 2

“ _Dear Enjolras and everyone,_

_Vietnam is hot. Hot and sticky and goddamn infested with bugs, I swear to God. There was a snake in my bunk the other day and I thought one of my bunkmates was going to shoot us all trying to get rid of it. And for good reason — one of my buddies got bitten by a snake and had to have his leg amputated._

_The heat and the mud is the worst of it right now. No sign of Victor Charlie yet, but it’s only a matter of time. One of the other companies got ambushed when they were out. Only five guys made it back alive. We keep on the march most days, but we don’t seem to be accomplishing anything. I felt more productive back when I was with you guys._

_Hopefully my entire tour will be just as uneventful, and I’ll be home to everyone soon._

_We’re about to move out, so I’ll end this now. All my love to everyone, and keep up the good fight._

_—Feuilly_ ”

Grantaire read the letter over Enjolras’s shoulder, focused more on Enjolras’s reaction than the letter itself, though it did seem like this Feuilly was someone that Grantaire would have gotten along with quite well. Still, he couldn’t help but stare at Enjolras, at the expressions that flashed across his face as he read, from excitement to anger to determination.

Since that day in the quad, Grantaire had spent as much time as possible hanging around with Enjolras and his activist group, even drawing cartoons for them and their protests, which admittedly had very little to do with any kind of latent activist tendencies in Grantaire and everything to do with a desire to just be around Enjolras. He was falling for the blond man, and hard, even though everything he learned about him seemed to only emphasize how different they were.

Enjolras conscientiously tried to stand out, tried to not conform as much as possible, from the clothes he wore to the things he said and did. Grantaire didn’t care about any of that so long as he had pot to smoke and booze to drink, and he made that fairly clear to Enjolras, laughing and mocking most of the things that Enjolras did.

This led to many fights, but Grantaire kept coming back, unable and entirely unwilling to stay away.

And that in turn led to them meeting up all around campus, like that day, which found them in a coffeeshop, going over some cartoons that Grantaire had grudgingly drawn for Enjolras. Combeferre had just brought the letter by, though, so they were taking a break to read it. Or, rather, Enjolras was; Grantaire was taking a break so that he could ogle the way the light was coming through the window and hitting Enjolras’s hair.

Enjolras sighed, his shoulders slumping, and slipped the letter back into the envelope. “It’s not fair,” he said, his voice uncharacteristically quiet, even small, and Grantaire froze at the unfamiliar tone. “Feuilly was always the best among us, and he shouldn’t have to…”

Though Enjolras trailed off, Grantaire understood, and he nodded. “Yeah, I know.” He shrugged and lit a cigarette, since this coffeeshop didn’t allow pot. “It’s not fair for any of them.”

“And yet you think what we’re doing is useless,” Enjolras said, his voice even, raising an eyebrow at Grantaire, who waved a dismissive hand.

“That’s not the point,” Grantaire told him, frowning slightly. “It  _isn’t_  fair. But what you’re doing…it’s gonna change fuck all with that. LBJ isn’t  _listening_. And fuck, you think Nixon is going to do a better job than LBJ if he gets elected? I don’t trust  _any_  of them, and nothing  _you_  can do will change that.”

Enjolras’s expression did not change as he said coolly, “But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try. Because if we can convinced even just a few people, our numbers will grow every day, and we will be strong enough to change things.”

Grantaire stared at him, wondering how one person could be so delusional, and also how one person could be so beautiful. And he couldn’t help but grin a little crookedly and shrug. “Well, if you say so.”

“I do,” Enjolras said firmly, pulling Grantaire’s most recent cartoon to him. “And I don’t think you’d bother with this if you didn’t believe it at least a little, either.”

There were a lot of things Grantaire wanted to say to that — the least being that he’d bother with just about  _anything_  if it meant spending time with Enjolras — but instead he shook his head and scooted closer to Enjolras to look at the changes Enjolras wanted to make to the cartoon.

* * *

 

Few freshmen were as excited to get to the university as Jean Prouvaire was.

Prouvaire’s had been a sheltered life, growing up in a creamy North Shore suburb of Chicago, the only son of an executive. He went through the motions of a typical 1960s conformist boy — he went to football games and homecoming dances, but deep inside he sensed a widening gulf between himself and his classmates, who looked forward to a future that looked so much like the past, a future of golf outings and three martini lunches.

By his senior year of high school he was sneaking into the city routinely to attend poetry readings at claustrophobic bookstores and to browse records at a store that reeked of pot. And on one unusually warm day in April, he finally screwed up the courage to enter a gay bar — and he was overcome with emotion seeing male couples dancing and embracing in a way he himself had always longed to do.

And as he sat on the last train home, the longing was so fierce he started to cry.

So being at the university was a marvelous revelation to Prouvaire — or Jehan as he preferred to call himself — as he no longer had to worry about curfews or disapproving glances from his mother. The only resistance he met was from his very conservative small-town roommate, who looked on with disgust as Jehan exchanged his button down shirts and dress pants for ripped jeans and t-shirts he’d tie-dyed himself in the dorm bathroom. He quickly found a pot connection on campus — a well-dressed Easterner named Montparnasse — and spent his days getting high and reading Rimbaud. He also started letting his hair grow, but because of its natural curl, it had the look of a perm gone wrong instead of the Haight Ashbury look he craved. He was also trying to grow facial hair, which was growing in patches instead of in a full beard.

To people he passed on the street, he looked ridiculous.

Jehan didn’t care. He was free.

Before arriving on campus he hadn’t given a lot of thought to politics — he opposed the war, of course, but living in his comfortable bubble of affluence, he hadn’t been affected by it personally, so his opposition was grounded simply in a vague sense that society needed to change.

His attitudes began to shift when he met his RA, a tall, strong senior politics major named Bahorel, whose job it was to keep the 28 freshman boys living on his floor from burning the building down. On a Saturday night in late September, when most of the floor had emptied out for post-football game debaucheries, Bahorel poked his head into Jehan’s room, where he was lying on his bed, reading and listening to Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds on his record player.  

“Whatcha reading, JP?” Bahorel asked, chuckling slightly at sight of the awkward freshman’s hair, which was sticking up in five different directions.

“Allen Ginsberg,” Jehan replied, trying to unobtrusively slide his just-rolled joint into his jeans pocket.

“Ginsberg, eh?” Bahorel was impressed. “Have you read Chomsky at all?”

Jehan shook his curly head.

“Ah, my dear young Mr. Prouvaire,” Bahorel said, coming to sit next to Jehan on the bed. “Why don’t you pass me that joint you were trying to hide, and I’ll teach you everything you need to know about politics.”

Over the next few weeks, under Bahorel’s tutelage, he found himself reading widely, embracing political protest with the zeal of the newly converted, nattering on to anyone who would listen about resisting authority and conformity and about the destructive forces of capitalism. He and Bahorel started spending more and more time together, arguing and shouting about how the United States needed to get out of Vietnam.

“We need a revolution or something, man,” Jehan intoned one evening as he sat cross-legged on the floor of Bahorel’s room, high on both marijuana and lofty ideals.

Bahorel, who was lying on his back on the bed, gazed down at his young protege with wonder.

“I think it’s time I took you to meet Les Amis,” he said.

* * *

 

Jehan was enamored of Les Amis before he even met them, as Bahorel had filled him in on the key players and the group’s raison d’etre, right down to the details of their beloved Feuilly’s plight as a draftee. He approached the evening of his first meeting with an excitement born of his passion for the cause — as well as Bahorel’s confession that some of the members of the group had, as he euphemistically put it, “similar interests” to jehan’’s.

As they entered the Musain that Thursday night, Jehan was jangling his change in his pocket and chattering away to Bahorel, who sensed his nervousness and patted him on the shoulder. “Why don’t you go get us a couple of beers?” he said in Jehan’s ear.

Jehan nodded and went over to the bar, where he flagged down the bartender.  “Two Millers,” he ordered, drumming his fingers on the wood as he waited.

The dark-haired man next to him gazed up from his own drink and looked Jehan up and down with a bemused smile. “You must be new here,” he observed.

Jehan looked around nervously. “What do you mean?” he asked suspiciously.

“Drinking that piss?” the dark-haired man said. “This isn’t Alpha Kappa Whatever, man.”

“But the boys are so much better looking here,” Jehan said, only half-joking.

The man looked taken aback for a moment, then guffawed loudly, extending a hand to Jehan. “I’m Grantaire, by the way.”

“Jean Prouvaire,” Jehan said, taking Grantaire’s hand. “But my friends call me Jehan.”

Grantaire leaned on the bar as he looked Jehan up and down. “So, Jehan,” he said, exaggerating the syllables of his name for effect, “what brings you here to this shithole?”

“Les Amis, of course,” Prouvaire said breezily. “I’m supposed to meet some guy named Enjolras — you know him?”

Grantaire sighed heavily and took a long pull on his drink, which was the only answer he gave. When the bartender arrived with the two drinks. Jehan threw a couple of bills on the bar and turned to go.  “Anyway — see you around?” he said over his shoulder.

“I’ll be here,” Grantaire muttered. “Don’t worry about that,” he added, half to himself, turning back to the beer that he was nursing, a dark expression on his face.

Jehan spotted Bahorel sitting at a table in the corner with two other men — one blond, one dark-haired — who he introduced as Enjolras and Courfeyrac. Enjolras’s face was stony at first, warily assessing the new recruit, but he grew more animated as he described the plans for their next protest, which was scheduled to take place at noon the next day.

“Word is there’s going to be a lot of cops, Enjolras,” Bahorel warned. “I think we need to be prepared for anything.”

Enjolras nodded sternly. “That’s what I hear,” he said, turning to Jehan. “You still want to help?”

Jehan nodded excitedly. “Anywhere you need me,” he said eagerly.

Courfeyrac smiled slyly, eyeing the young freshman. “Bahorel says you’re a writer. Do you want to help me with the speeches? Combeferre is writing his own, but I need to finish mine and Enjolras’s.”

“Absolutely,” Jehan enthused, oblivious to the knowing glance Enjolras and Bahorel exchanged.

Courfeyrac rose, picking up a sheaf of papers from the table. “Let’s go into the back room where it’s quiet,” he said with a devilish grin.

Jehan trailed along behind Courfeyrac, his eyes wide and his ego soaring.

For the next three hours, they wrote and edited the speeches for the next day, their voices escalating as they debated political philosophies and drank copious amounts of whiskey. When they were both satisfied, Courfeyrac produced a joint and lit it, inhaling deeply.

“Shit, that’s almost better than sex,” Courfeyrac sighed, passing the joint to Jehan.

Jehan took a drag and giggled. “I wouldn’t know,” he admitted, studying Courfeyrac’s handsome face.

Minutes later he was pressed against the wall of the back room of the Musain, his jeans down around his ankles as Courfeyrac pounded into him, swearing oaths that would make a sailor blush.

Jehan’s revolution was well underway.

* * *

 

Enjolras leaned against the bar and smiled tiredly at the bartender. “Just a glass of water for me, thanks,” he said, his voice scratchy from how much he had been talking that evening.

From his bar stool, Grantaire raised his half-full beer in greeting. “Just water? I would think you’d be taking in a stronger libation in honor of your impending success.”

Frowning, Enjolras told him, “I’m not going to drink the night before one of the biggest protests this year. That would just be stupid.”

Grantaire smirked and took a hefty swig from his beer. “In that case, I’ll make sure to be stupid enough for both of us.”

As he dug in his pocket for a joint which he promptly lit up, Enjolras just shook his head, his exasperation suddenly getting the better of him. “Well if you’re going to be so stupid, you may as well not show up for the protest tomorrow.”

Still smirking, Grantaire blew smoke out in Enjolras’s face. “Who said that I was planning on coming to the protest anyway?”

Enjolras looked taken aback before his expression slid into something more neutral. “Oh,” he said, the word hanging heavily between them.

Grantaire’s smirk faltered slightly, and his grip tightened on his beer as he tried to feign nonchalance. “I mean, I hadn’t decided one way or another. Why, did you—” He glanced at Enjolras, suddenly nervous and far too sincere as he asked, “—did you want me there?”

“I just assumed you would be there,” Enjolras said honestly. “With as much time as you’ve been spending with me — with Les Amis, I mean — I just…well, I assumed.”

“Never assume, Enjolras,” Grantaire said, suddenly serious. “You know what they say about when you assume.”

The bartender slid the glass of water to Enjolras, and he quickly took a sip, forcing a chuckle. “I know, I know, you make an ass out of ‘u’ and me.”

He drained the glass and set it on the counter, heading back to his friends, waving over his shoulder at Grantaire, who just stared after him, his expression contemplative and a little sad. “No, not just that,” he said to himself, draining his beer. “When you assume, you end up with a broken heart.”

* * *

 

Joly was a late arrival to the Musain that night, wandering in just as Jehan and Courfeyrac were adjourning to the backroom. He bought himself a beer, making small talk with Grantaire as he waited, then made his way over the small table in the corner where Combeferre sat, scribbling on notebook paper.  In the weeks since that night at Corinthe, they had spent many hours together, either at Joly’s studio or at the apartment Combeferre shared with Courfeyrac, but in the past couple of weeks, Combeferre had been spending more and more time at the Musain with Enjolras and Courfeyrac, planning and organizing protests.

Combeferre was so engrossed in his work he didn’t even notice Joly’s approach.

“Hey, Ferre,” Joly said, taking the seat opposite him and putting his glass down on the table. “We missed you in class today.”

“I’m busy,” Combeferre said, not looking up. “I have this speech to finish, and then I need to talk to Enjolras about a plan for dealing with the police tomorrow—”

Joly put his hand over Combeferre’s writing hand, bending down to try to meet Combeferre’s eyes. “You’re going to flunk out, Ferre. I can give you my notes again, but I don’t know how much longer I can cover for you. And the police? Are you really sure you want to fuck with them?”

Combeferre glared up at him. “This is a revolution, Joly, not a fucking pep rally.”

Joly furrowed his eyebrows. “I’m just worried about you, Combeferre. You never come to class anymore, you keep calling in sick to the clinic—”

“This revolution is more important than anything,”  Combeferre interrupted, his voice firm.

Joly was taken aback. “More important than school? Than curing diseases and healing the sick?”  _More important than me_? he almost said, then thought better of it.

“Joly, I thought we agreed on this,” Combeferre said patiently. “This is my work now. We need to take the system down, and we need to do it now,” he intoned gravely.

Joly didn’t answer, distracted by the sight of Bossuet entering the bar with a man Joly recognized as a fellow law student — Pontmercy, Joly recalled his name.

Combeferre grasped him by the wrist. “Don’t go back on me, Joly,” he implored. “The revolution needs you. I need you.”

Joly stared into his icy eyes, his mind racing with all the possible things that could go wrong if he followed his friend into the fray.

Still, he nodded and whispered, “I’m yours.”

* * *

 

Despite what he had said to Enjolras, Grantaire couldn’t stay away from campus the next day, though he made sure to stay away from the growing crowd, keeping to the periphery, though he couldn’t drag his eyes away from Enjolras, who looked equal parts excited and defiant.

Grantaire just wished that he didn’t have a feeling in the pit of his stomach that everything was going to go wrong.

He kept counting the number of campus security who kept walking by, looking suspiciously at the crowd, which was already substantial without the protest even starting, and was getting more and more concerned. If it wasn’t for Enjolras, Grantaire would have been long gone, far away from what was about to happen.

As it was, he stayed.

Just when the rally was about to start, someone accidentally ran into him from behind, and Grantaire dragged his gaze away from Enjolras to help the kid to his feet, smiling when he recognized the new guy — Jean Prouvaire — from the night before. “Jehan, right?” Grantaire said, still smiling.

“That’s right!” Jehan said, sharing his smile. “I didn’t know you were going to be here.”

Grantaire shrugged moodily. “Couldn’t have torn me away for the world,” he muttered, glancing at Enjolras. Then he looked back at Jehan, his eyes narrowing. “You really shouldn’t be here, kid,” he said, his voice serious. “Something bad is going to happen here today, and you don’t want to be a part of it. You’re too young, man. Go home, get stoned, and don’t get involved.”

Jehan just laughed and shook his head. “I’m already involved,” he told Grantaire. “I helped with Enjolras and Courfeyrac’s speeches. And I wouldn’t miss this for the world.” He started edging into the crowd, waving at Grantaire as he went, calling, “I’ll see you after the rally!”

Though Grantaire was worried, he had more important things on his mind, specifically the police beginning to surround the rally, and specifically what those policeman could do to Enjolras. The kid was going to have to take care of himself, because as Enjolras took to the steps to begin talking, Grantaire had a sinking feeling that Enjolras sure as hell wasn’t going to take care of himself.

* * *

 

There was a brisk wind blowing through the quad the next day, whipping through their handmade signs and banners. The crowd was significantly larger than it had been the last time — and it was clear to Joly that it was significantly angrier.  Men and women colored the air with epithets about LBJ and corporatization and how the pigs needed to get off campus. Some of the more daring students confronted the police directly, giving them the finger and taunting them with insults directed toward their wives and mothers.

Joly shouted right along with them — but he couldn’t shake the queasy feeling in his stomach as he watched his friends ascend the steps of the administration building. Enjolras, of course, was the first to speak; the themes were the same, but Joly noticed that the language was much more strident, and his imagery considerably bloodier.

As he watched their leader speak, he felt someone poke him in the ribs — and he turned to see an awkward looking young man he vaguely remembered seeing at the Musain the previous night, a grin splitting his face in two.

“I helped write that,” the young man said in Joly’s ear, as the crowd roared its approval of Enjolras’s speech.

Joly didn’t respond, instead turning his attention to the stage, where it was Combeferre’s turn to speak. His anxiety lifted somewhat as he listened to Combeferre, whose rhetoric maintained a semblance of reason in contrast to Enjolras’s, even as he demonstrated an equal commitment to overthrowing the system.

The crowd response to Combeferre’s speech was muted — indeed, his halting voice may have lulled them to sleep — and Joly said a silent prayer of thanks.

But then Courfeyrac took to the stage.

His speech was even more inflammatory than Enjolras’s — he denounced the war with prose that was laced with angry epithets and callbacks.

And the crowd started getting louder.

“Even here on campus, we’re not free,” Courfeyrac shouted. “They bring these pigs in here, with their fucking machine guns, like we’re some Vietnamese village they want to annihilate. Fuck them. Fuck them all!”

Joly blanched as the young man next to him joined in the wild cheering. “Did you write that too?” Joly asked, a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

Before the young man could answer, shouts of “Kill the pigs!” echoed through the quad, and the crowd started to push toward the lines of policemen surrounding the rally. Joly strained to see what was going on, but all he could see was that Enjolras, Combeferre and Courfeyrac had all disappeared from the stage. The young man he had been speaking to had also moved toward the fray, where students had started throwing things at the cops.

And then Joly noticed the white smoke of tear gas.

He pulled his jacket collar up over his mouth and nose, trying not to breathe in the fumes as he attempted to find his way out of the crowd. As he looked up he noticed the young speechwriter staggering about, partially blinded and crying for help.

“Please,” he wailed in a thin voice.

Joly’s medical instincts kicked in, and he grabbed the young man by the arm. “Come on,” he said, steering him out of the crowd and toward the science buildings, where Joly’s lab was located. Once they were safely inside the silent lab, Joly started running water in the sink.

“Here, splash water on your face,” Joly said calmly. “You need to flush your eyes.”

The young man obeyed, bending over the sink. “I didn’t see that coming, man,” he admitted.

Joly’s mouth tightened, thinking of his own premonitions. “What’s your name?” he asked as he went to fetch a towel, not wanting to share his concerns with this boy.

“Prouvaire. Or you can call me Jehan. Whatever you prefer.” the young man answered, lifting his head up from the sink, his eyes still closed and his face dripping with water. “Are you a doctor?”

“Not yet,” Joly said, as he towelled off Jehan’s face. He couldn’t help smiling at Jehan’s earnestness, despite the dozens of bad scenarios involving Combeferre’s whereabouts that were floating through his brain. “Try opening your eyes now,” he said gently.

Jehan’s eyelashes fluttered and opened, and he gazed at Joly gratefully. In that instant Joly forgot where he was, momentarily drowning in the freshman’s deep blue eyes.

“What’s your name?” Jehan asked, interrupting Joly’s reverie.

“It’s Joly, just—Joly,” he said, shaking himself off and trying to focus on the situation at hand, and recalling that his friends — and Combeferre — were probably still out there amid the fracas. “Look, I should probably go help out—go find—find someone, find some people. You can stay here if you want to, okay?” he said, suddenly flustered.

“Are you all right?” Jehan asked, his face crumpled with concern.

Joly stopped and gazed at him for a long moment, his mind racing — about the protest, about Combeferre, about this innocent he’d just rescued. He believed as strongly as any of his friends that the war needed to end, that the country had veered off course somehow — but he was still unsure as to whether violence was the answer. Combeferre’s arguments sounded so reasonable in the safe confines of the Musain or his apartment — but looking at Prouvaire’s guileless face made him wonder.

Shouldn’t this kid be worrying about getting drunk and getting laid — not getting tear-gassed on his own campus?

But he could hear Combeferre’s calm voice answering his question with a question:  _shouldn’t Feuilly be worrying about getting drunk and getting laid — not being shot at thousands of miles away from home?_

“No,” Joly said quietly. “No, I’m not okay. Go home, Jehan. Get away from all of this while you still can. Please.”

He walked away from Jehan and out of the building, but instead of walking toward the fray to help his fellow students, he started making his way toward the Musain — and, he hoped, Combeferre.

Perhaps Jehan could walk away — but Joly knew he himself could not.

* * *

 

As soon as the tear gas started, Grantaire ran in the opposite direction of the crowd, towards the administration building, rather than away from it, ignoring the fleeing protesters he bumped into along the way. “Enjolras!” he screamed, his t-shirt pulled over his nose and mouth to try and block the fumes as best as he could. “Enjolras!”

People were screaming and crying and running, but Grantaire had the single-minded thought that he had to get to Enjolras. “Enjolras!” he shouted again, finally seeing the blond, doubled over as if he had been hit in the stomach. Judging from the police officer brandishing his baton near him, Enjolras probably  _had_  been hit in the stomach, and the breath seemed to catch in Grantaire’s throat. “Enjolras?”

Enjolras looked up, his face screwed up with pain, though whether from the tear gas or the blow, Grantaire neither knew nor cared. Instead, he grabbed Enjolras’s arm and dragged him away. “Come on!” he shouted. “I’ve got to get you somewhere safe.”

He didn’t know where he was going, trusting his feet to find their way as he half-dragged, half-carried Enjolras, who on closer inspection also had a bruise blooming across his face, with blood trickling from his nose. “Jesus  _fucking_  Christ, Enj, are you trying to get yourself killed?” Grantaire growled, his heart beating at what felt like a hundred miles an hour.

“Not  _trying_ ,” Enjolras spat, though his voice sounded weak and a little dazed. “Free to…protest…”

“If you think the cops are going to respect your right to peacefully assemble, you’re fucking delusional,” Grantaire told him, speeding up as he realized they were almost at the art building, where Grantaire could clean Enjolras up and make sure he wasn’t seriously injured. “And if you think what happened back there was peaceful assembly, you’re even more delusional than I thought.”

Neither of them spoke again until Grantaire got Enjolras into his studio, sitting him down on the stool and telling him firmly, “Don’t fucking move.” Then he practically ran to get a wet washcloth, which he pressed almost tenderly to Enjolras’s swollen cheek when he returned. “The cop hit you in the face, hm?” Grantaire said, softly, pulling up a stool so he could sit down as close to Enjolras as he could, peering into his eyes. “Anything feel broken? Your nose? You didn’t break any teeth, did you?”

Enjolras shook his head and winced. “No, just hurts like hell.” He was silent as his tongue probed in his mouth, and then he confirmed, “Teeth are fine, too.”

“Good,” Grantaire said, almost distractedly. “Wouldn’t want your pretty face permanently scarred.” His hands dropped to Enjolras’s sides. “And the cop hit you in the stomach, too?”

When Enjolras was silent, Grantaire sighed. “Enjolras, let me see,” he commanded, his voice soft, though there was an edge to it. Enjolras hesitated for a moment more, then shrugged, and Grantaire tugged the hem of Enjolras’s shirt up, revealing the start of a wicked-looking bruise against his ribs. “Jesus Christ,” Grantaire hissed, skimming his fingers lightly over it. “Fuck, are your ribs broken?”

Enjolras took a deep breath and shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said, more confidently than Grantaire would have imagined, and Grantaire frowned up at him.

“Have you had your ribs broken before?” Grantaire asked, and Enjolras just shrugged. “Jesus Christ, you  _do_  have a death wish, don’t you?”

Enjolras just shrugged, though he winced again when the movement jostled his bruised ribs. “You’re one to talk,” he said, through gritted teeth. “You came. Even though you said you weren’t going to.”

Grantaire shrugged as well. “Of course I came,” he said, taking the washcloth off Enjolras’s cheek and using it to dab at the blood dried under his nose. “You were going to be there. I couldn’t  _not_  come. Besides,” he added, his fingers incredibly gentle against Enjolras’s swollen cheek, “I never said I wasn’t going to come. I just said I hadn’t decided, and—”

Whatever Grantaire was going to say died in his throat as Enjolras closed the distance between them and kissed Grantaire, who froze, still holding the washcloth up to Enjolras’s nose. Then Enjolras pulled away just as quickly, eyes wide and panicked. “Sorry, I, uh, I didn’t mean—”

“You didn’t mean to kiss me?” Grantaire asked, a little numbly, and Enjolras flushed and shook his head.

“No, I meant to kiss you, just…I didn’t mean to kiss you right now, if that makes sense.”

Grantaire looked at Enjolras with narrowed eyes. “Honestly, nothing about this makes sense.”

Enjolras’s expression tightened and he sat back. “You don’t…I mean, I know what you said about assuming, but I just thought…” Grantaire stared at him, and Enjolras flushed even redder. “I thought you had feelings for me.”

Shaking his head, Grantaire said gruffly, “You thought correctly.” Enjolras instantly seemed to perk up, but then Grantaire added quickly, “I just don’t think that you have feelings for me.”

Enjolras stared at him, confused. “What are you talking about?” he asked.

Grantaire shrugged. “You and I don’t exactly get along,” he pointed out carefully. “And while that’s enough for me because I’m sick and twisted, for you…I think you want more. I think you’d deserve more. And besides, maybe you just think that this is the next step in your non-conformity, that converting some loser, slacker cynic is the last step you need to take to be truly radical, but none of that means that you like me. And I mean—”

“Grantaire,” Enjolras said firmly, cutting him off mid-sentence. “I  _do_  like you. It has nothing to do with converting you, and nothing to do with non-conformity.” He reached out tentatively to trace his fingers down Grantaire’s cheek, and he repeated, “I do like you. I really,  _really_  like you. You infuriate me and drive me crazy but you’re so smart and funny and witty and, just, everything I didn’t know I wanted until I met you, and—”

This time Grantaire cut Enjolras off by surging forward and kissing him, mentally thanking whatever powers that there were that he had been unable to resist attending the protest that day.

Once again Enjolras pulled away, though this time Grantaire tried to chase after him, a small whine of protest escaping from his lips as he did. Enjolras laughed lightly but told him, “I have to go. I’m supposed to meet up with Combeferre at the Musain to debrief. He’s going to be  _pissed_  at the fucking pigs.” Enjolras practically spat the last words, his righteous anger returning in one swift moment. “They shouldn’t crack down on a peaceful protest, they shouldn’t use fucking  _tear gas_  on  _unarmed_  students, they—” He broke off, inhaling sharply, and forced himself to relax, giving Grantaire a tight smile. “Anyway. The debrief is important.”

Grantaire looked at him doubtfully as Enjolras stood, wincing, and asked wryly, “You sure you’re going to make it there in one piece?”

Enjolras grinned at him. “Well, that’s why you’re going to come with me.”

Now Grantaire stared at him, confused. “You want me to come with you to your debrief?” he asked slowly. “But I wasn’t even a part of the protest. I don’t have anything to contribute. I don’t—”

“Grantaire.” For the second time Enjolras cut Grantaire off mid-sentence, though this time he reached out to take Grantaire’s hand, pulling him to his feet. “I want you there. Besides, I thought I would take you up on your offer from last night.” With his free hand he touched the bruise on his ribs lightly and made a face. “I figured some sort of celebratory drinks were in order.”

Grantaire half-smiled at that. “Well, I’m never one to turn down drinks,” he said lightly, letting Enjolras lead him out of the room. “We’ll raise our glasses in a toast to fuck the police.”

“Exactly,” Enjolras murmured, squeezing Grantaire’s hand, though his expression had hardened at the thought. “Exactly.”


	3. Chapter 3

“ _Dear Enjolras and everyone,_

_Not much has changed from the last time that I wrote. We moved locations. I don’t know if I can tell you where I am now, but things are at least a little better here. I have an actual floor and roof over my bunk, which is a pleasant change._

_We were supposed to be joining with another unit but the rain isn’t allowing the helicopters to take us all where we need to go. So I’ve mostly been sitting around playing cards. There’s some Michigan boys in my company and they’re teaching me euchre. They’re even worse card sharks than Courf, I swear to God. But at least I’m not playing poker with some of the other guys — a buddy of mine lost his month’s ration of cigarettes in the first four hands._

_The lights went out on the air base last night and then three rockets fell a couple miles away. That’s still the most action I’ve seen thus far._

_I’ll write when I can. All my love to everyone._

_—Feuilly_ ”

Grantaire rolled over in bed, resting his chin on Enjolras’s shoulder. “What’re you thinking about?” he murmured, tracing his fingers lightly down Enjolras’s bare skin, his voice still low and wrecked from his recent orgasm.

Enjolras shifted slightly. “Feuilly,” he told Grantaire, who sighed and turned his head to press a kiss to Enjolras’s jaw.

“You know, if I didn’t know better, I would be awfully jealous of you thinking about another guy immediately after fucking me,” Grantaire said teasingly.

Enjolras didn’t laugh, and didn’t even smile, instead rolling over to face Grantaire, their foreheads just touching. “I’m worried about him,” Enjolras told Grantaire softly, his eyes downcast. “I just have this horrible feeling that I can’t shake.”

Grantaire frowned and reached up to cup Enjolras’s cheek, his thumb rubbing soothing circles against the pale skin. “Hey, I read the latest letter. There’s nothing to worry about right now. Feuilly’s fine, he’s safe. And for the time being, that means you don’t have to worry about him.”

This conversation was far too familiar territory for them. Though they hadn’t been together that long, it seemed like every time they had sex or, God forbid, go on a date, which had happened maybe once or twice, Enjolras quickly fell into something melancholy, as if he was betraying the cause by spending time with Grantaire. At first it hadn’t bothered Grantaire too much — the sex was  _amazing_ , if brief, and they did at least normally spend a little bit of time together afterward — but lately it had gotten worse.

Like today, when Grantaire’s attempt at reassuring words caused Enjolras’s expression to harden. “You didn’t read all of the letter,” he said darkly. “There was a postscript.” He rolled over again to grab the letter off of his bedside table, hesitating for a moment before passing it over to Grantaire. “On the back. He asked me not to share it, but…well, you’ll see.”

Grantaire took the piece of paper and squinted at the narrow, cramped handwriting that had become quite familiar to him. “ _P.S. Dear Enjolras, Please don’t show this to anyone else. I don’t want anyone else to see, especially Bahorel. I don’t want anyone to worry. We’re leaving on a combat mission soon — I don’t know when I’ll be able to send another letter. But I’m scared. The last two patrols that went out had a ton of casualties. I hope things are going better on your end. I just want to come home._ ”

Glancing from the letter to Enjolras, Grantaire was surprised to see tears pricking in Enjolras’s eyes. “How am I supposed to feel when one of the bravest, smartest, best men that I know is feeling like that?” Enjolras asked quietly.

Grantaire was at a loss for words, and he settled for drawing Enjolras closer to him and kissing the top of his head. “You don’t have to feel anything,” he murmured. “This is fucking unfair for everyone.”

“I just feel like I should be doing more to change things.” Enjolras’s voice had taken on a steely quality, the kind that scared Grantaire a little, the kind that made Grantaire wonder what Enjolras was capable of.

Shaking his head, Grantaire told Enjolras softly, “You’re doing everything you can.”

Enjolras stiffened in Grantaire’s arms and pulled away slightly, his expression stormy. “I’m not, though,” he snapped. “We could do so much more. We need to radicalize, to stop trying to solve this through the system because the system doesn’t give a fuck. I’m tired of tiptoeing around in hopes that it’ll fucking solve something.”

“What more can you do, though?” Grantaire asked, feeling suddenly desperate. “You’ll get kicked out of school if you do too much, and then you might end up right next to Feuilly!” Enjolras shook his head, and Grantaire kissed him, an almost harsh kiss. “I don’t want to lose you, but I feel like you’re slipping away.”

Enjolras was quiet for a long moment before muttering, “I can’t promise that you won’t lose me. This is bigger than me — this is bigger than both of us. This isn’t just a fight for my life, or our lives — this is a fight for everyone.” He looked away before saying stonily, “And if you can’t handle that, I’ll understand.”

Grantaire shook his head. “I’m not going anywhere,” he told Enjolras, pulling him close again and kissing him once more, a softer, gentler kiss. “I’m here. I’m right here.”

Even so, even though they were pressed as closely together as they possibly could be, it felt as if there was a divide between them, and a coldness seemed to emanate from Enjolras despite the normal warmth from his skin. After a moment, Enjolras stood up, his voice cool as he told Grantaire, “I’ve got some work to do. You can stay if you want.”

Grantaire sat up as well, watching as Enjolras hastily dressed. “No, I think I’ll go,” he said, his voice a little hollow. They dressed in silence, and then Enjolras sat down at his desk, pulling a notebook towards him and starting to write furiously in it. Grantaire lingered in the doorway, watching him for a long moment, before saying quietly, “I love you, you know.”

Enjolras didn’t even look up from his desk. “I’ll see you later.”

Grantaire blinked back tears as he slipped out of Enjolras’s apartment.  _It’s just because of Feuilly_ , he told himself.  _It’ll be ok. It’ll be ok_. His steps turned purposeful, taking him to the quad, where he would sketch a little and smoke a lot, until he maybe believed the lie that he was telling himself.

* * *

 

Combeferre was angry.

On this particular day his anger was directed toward an inanimate object — he was banging on the heating ducts in his apartment because they wouldn’t come on, coloring the chilly air with profanities.

“Goddamn these fucking things! I told the fucking landlord I needed him to fix them last week, for Christ’s sake,” he growled to Joly.

“Cursing at it isn’t going to make it any warmer, Ferre,” Joly admonished him mildly, wrapping a blanket around his shoulders and wandering away into the kitchen, where he made himself a cup of coffee and sat down at the table to read the newspaper. The headlines were the same as they had been for months — more and more Americans dying in southeast Asia, while at home there was violence on campuses and cities alike.

The thought of it made Joly want to hit something too.

Since the tear gas incident, both men were angry, but it was an anger that manifested itself in very different ways. Before that Friday on October, Combeferre’s short temper took the form of sarcastic barbs and steely glares, or a lengthy, well-reasoned diatribe that dissected the opposition point by point.

Afterwards, however, was a different story. Combeferre had come through the incident mostly unscathed physically — just a bloody nose that was the result of him trying to restrain Courfeyrac from going after the cop who hit Enjolras — but the confrontation with the police flipped a switch in him. Gone was the calm, reasoned argument for ending the war, now replaced by the frequent use of the terms “pigs” and “revolution.” He swore more frequently, and more than once he startled Joly by pounding the table in frustration.

For his part, Joly was angry too - but it was a more measured sort of anger. He still couldn’t understand why students exercising their right to free speech were being gassed on their own campus — it was, to his mind, completely illogical. At night, when he tried to sleep, he was haunted by the watery eyes of young Prouvaire, whose excitement at the idea of finally being able to make a difference had come crashing down in a fog of tear gas.

Continuing on the path they were going was not an option.

But he wasn’t convinced more violence would change a thing.

Yet the tensions were spilling over into other areas of their relationship. Little annoyances quickly mushroomed into petty disputes that frequently ended with slamming doors. Combeferre was barely managing to keep up with his classes, still relying on Joly to keep him on track. And Joly noticed a change in Combeferre in bed — he would never make eye contact, and the sex was faster and rougher, as if Combeferre was taking out all of his frustrations by pounding into Joly with all of his might.

But Joly didn’t dare ask him about it, afraid that the end result of such a conversation would be the loss of Combeferre for good.

Just then the phone rang, startling Joly out of his reverie. “Can you get that?” Combeferre called from the other room.

Joly obeyed, lifting the receiver off of the wall phone. “Hello?” he asked.

“Combeferre?” It was Bahorel, clearly calling from the pay phone near the restrooms at the Musain.

“No, it’s Joly,” he said, raising his voice so Bahorel could hear him over the music and general cacophony of the bar.

“Tell Combeferre to come right away.” Bahorel’s voice betrayed an uncharacteristic sense of urgency. “Enjolras needs him now.”

“Is everything okay?” Joly asked, feeling suddenly queasy.

“Just come,” Bahorel said gruffly before abruptly terminating the call.

Joly was still staring at the receiver when Combeferre appeared in the doorway, still brandishing his wrench.

“Who was that?” Combeferre asked, weighing the wrench in his large hands.

“It—it was Bahorel,” Joly stammered, hanging up the phone. “Something’s—I think something’s happened,” he said gravely.

Combeferre went white and dropped the wrench on the floor, where it landed with a loud clatter.

“Feuilly,” he whispered.

* * *

 

When Grantaire let himself into Enjolras’s apartment, he knew instantly that something was wrong. “Enjolras?” he called, feeling his heart start to pound as he headed to the bedroom. “Enjolras?”

Enjolras was sitting on the bed, head in his hands, a small piece of paper on the bed next to him. Grantaire knelt down in front of him, resting his hands tentatively on Enjolras’s knee. “What happened?” he asked urgently, even though he knew, even though he had known as soon as he walked through the door. Enjolras just looked at him with red-rimmed eyes, and Grantaire stood, picking the piece of paper up off the bed, his heart sinking at the “WESTERN UNION TELEGRAM” logo printed at the top.

“THE SECRETARY OF THE ARMY HAS ASKED ME TO EXPRESS HIS DEEP REGRET THAT PRIVATE FIRST CLASS FEUILLY DIED 26 OCTOBER 1967 IN VIETNAM FROM WOUND RECEIVED ON COMBAT OPERATION WHEN HIT BY HOSTILE SMALL ARMS FIRE. DELAY IN NOTIFYING YOU OF HIS DEATH WAS DUE TO THE TACTICAL SITUATION IN VIETNAM FOR THE PAST FEW DAYS. PLEASE ACCEPT OUR SINCERE SYMPATHY OF YOUR BEREAVEMENT. THIS CONFIRMS PERSONAL NOTIFICATION MADE BY A REPRESENTATIVE OF THE SECRETARY OF THE ARMY.  
KENNETH G WICKHAM MAJOR GENERAL F59 THE ADJUTANT GENERAL (17).”

Grantaire had never met Feuilly, had not met Les Amis until long after Feuilly had been drafted. Still, he had read almost every letter Feuilly had sent to them, and heard all the stories that they told about the man, and for just one brief moment, he allowed himself to mourn the fact that he would never shake the hand of this man, would never swap stories about Enjolras with him, would never thank him for the letters that he sent Enjolras and everyone else.

But he  _hadn’t_  known Feuilly, and he  _did_  know Enjolras, who was alive and in front of him and in need of more comforting than Grantaire had any idea how to provide. He knelt back in front of him, his touch tentative, not knowing how Enjolras would react. “I’m so sorry,” he told him quietly.

Again Enjolras looked up at him, but there were no tears in his red, puffy eyes, only pure fury. “You’re  _sorry_?” he repeated, his voice cracking. “Is that supposed to make this better?”

“Of course not,” Grantaire said, recoiling as if he had been slapped. “ _Nothing_ is going to make this better.”

Enjolras stood, so abruptly that Grantaire almost fell backwards. His face was a stony mask as he started pacing. “You’re wrong,” he said, his words as hard as his expression. “There is something I can do, to bring the message home that we will never again allow this to happen.”

Grantaire licked his lips nervously as he watched him, standing as well, almost warily. “Whatever you’re thinking, Enjolras, I can guarantee it’s not worth it. It’s not going to bring Feuilly back.”

Enjolras barely even spared him a glance, and continued talking as if Grantaire hadn’t interrupted him. “We’ll hit them where it hurts, hit them hard. We’ll make them pay, make them know what it feels like.” He stopped, squaring his shoulders. “They’ve sealed their fate.”

A part of Grantaire understood what Enjolras was feeling, sympathized with his desire for revenge, but the bigger part, the stubborn part that even now refused to be silent, knew that this was a powder keg waiting to go off. “Whoever this ‘they’ is, they didn’t do this,” Grantaire said slowly, his eyes not leaving Enjolras. “They didn’t send Feuilly to Vietnam, they didn’t put him on a combat operation, they didn’t pull the trigger. Whatever you’re thinking, whatever you’re planning, it’s not going to help.” Enjolras just shook his head, his jaw clenched, turning away from Grantaire, and Grantaire reached out desperately, grabbing his arm. “Enjolras, you’re not even making any logical sense!”

Enjolras whirled on him, eyes flashing, fists clenched, and for a second, Grantaire thought that Enjolras might hit him. “No,” he snarled, pointing his finger at Grantaire. “No, this isn’t one of our ideological debates, you don’t get to fucking stand there and tell me that. Feuilly is  _dead_  and you’re right — that  _doesn’t_  make fucking sense!”

“This isn’t about ideology!” Grantaire shot back. “This is about not making decisions in the heat of the moment and not doing something stupid that won’t have any effect in the long run!”

“So what do you suggest?” Enjolras snapped. “Because what we’re doing isn’t working!”

Grantaire shook his head. “I’m suggesting you give it time! More people are joining in every day, and you’re reaching people we never even dreamed of! Look at the response to the last protest! Look at the political slogans and cartoons that we’ve come up with that are popping up everywhere! People are listening. Don’t throw all of that away for nothing!”

Enjolras’s lip curled. “There’s a revolution that’s about to happen, and you want to sit on the sidelines doodling cartoons.” He leaned in, his eyes blazing. “Maybe it’s time you actually fucking take a stand for something you believe in.”

Grantaire did not back down, staring at Enjolras steadily. “And maybe I am taking a stand for something I believe in,” he said quietly.

Snorting, Enjolras shook his head. “And what would that be?”

“You.”

The word was simple, quiet, stark, and for a long moment they both just stared at each other. Then Enjolras said, almost plaintively, “If you believed in me, you would be on board with whatever we plan.”

Grantaire shook his head slowly. “No. Because I  _do_  believe in you. And I believe that if you are going to change things, it won’t be this way.”

Enjolras’s expression hardened. “Then you’re as incapable of believing as I thought.” Hurt flashed across Grantaire’s face, and Enjolras turned away. “If you’re not with us, then leave. I have work to do.”

For a moment, Grantaire contemplated arguing more, but then Enjolras added, “And if you leave, don’t bother coming back.”

A dry sob almost choked its way out of Grantaire’s throat, but in the end, all he managed was a whispered, “I love you.”

Enjolras didn’t turn back to face him as he said, “And that doesn’t change anything.”

* * *

 

Combeferre was inconsolable.

They left the Musain together, where Bahorel was cursing and yelling and Courfeyrac was staring into the middle distance, downing beer after beer, Even Jehan, who had never even met Feuilly, was crying, his chest heaving as he buried his head in his hands.

While Joly blinked back tears — still in disbelief that Feuilly wasn’t going to waltz into the Musain, bearing modest gifts and spinning tales of his travels a world away — Combeferre’s face shut down completely. His eyes were glassy, and his mouth formed a tight line.

And saying nothing, he turned and walked out of the bar.

Joly gathered himself and followed him, walking silently through the city streets to Combeferre’s apartment. When they arrived back at the apartment, Combeferre walked wordlessly into the bedroom and went straight to bed still clothed, pulling the covers over his head, as if the blankets could somehow protect him from the news.

He stayed that way for three days.

Joly remained with him, sitting beside the bed in silent vigil, not sleeping and only leaving the apartment to buy food and to go back to his own studio to feed his cat. He called his professors and explained the situation, begging their forbearance and promising he would make up the work.

Things would get back to normal soon, he assured them.

But even as the words came out of his mouth, he didn’t believe them.

By the third night, Joly was exhausted both physically and emotionally, and he finally collapsed on the bed next to Combeferre, lying face down on top of the covers. He fell asleep almost as soon as his body hit the mattress, his dreams haunted by visions of Feuilly’s last moments.

When he finally awoke, eleven hours later, he felt Combeferre’s hand lightly stroking his back. As Joly turned over to look at him, he immediately noticed that Combeferre had finally showered and changed clothes, his still-damp hair brushing his shoulders. To anyone else, it would seem as if the old Combeferre had returned.

But even through his bleary eyes, Joly could see that Combeferre’s face looked like that of a much older man.

“This has to end,” Combeferre said, his voice weary.

Joly nodded. “It does,” he murmured.

* * *

 

Combeferre had a plan.

The plan, as Combeferre explained it to Joly over dinner, was simple. Courfeyrac knew someone who could get them some explosives — some friend of a friend who owned a demolition company. Enjolras and Courfeyrac had scoped out the administration building, trying to find a way they could break into the building and into the offices of those responsible for bringing Dow to campus. The idea was that they would set off the device when no one was there — probably in the middle of the night — so that they could get their message across without anyone getting hurt.

There were two problems with the plan.

One was that they couldn’t find a good way to get access to the building.

The other was that the night janitor’s office was in the basement, and Courfeyrac had discovered that he was sleeping in his office, having been kicked out of his house for cheating on his wife, and while Enjolras especially didn’t seem to care — something had changed with him after Feuilly’s death, something that frightened Joly a little — Courfeyrac had put his foot down on outright murder.

So the plot was on hold — or at least it was for now, Combeferre explained. Combeferre had sworn Joly to absolute secrecy, admitting that only Enjolras and his two lieutenants knew about the plot. “The fewer people that know, the better,” he said, before he ran off to meet Enjolras and Courfeyrac, with whom he had met almost daily since the news of Feuilly’s death.

Joly nodded, as he always did. But deep down, he still wasn’t sure this was the right thing to do. How would destroying some file room in the administration building end the war?

But he kept his doubts to himself, and started spending most of his waking hours at the library or in the lab, buried in his textbooks — after all, he thought, one of us should actually finish his degree.

As Joly strode out of the library on an early December day, pulling his coat collar up to ward off the cold wind coming in from the lake, he heard a familiar voice calling his name.

“Joly!” The voice belonged to Jehan, who he hadn’t seen since the day they found out about Feuilly’s death.

Joly turned to face him, reflexively smiling at the young man. His beard was finally growing in, and a wool cap covered his unruly curls. “How are you, Prouvaire?”

“It is an ill wind blowing in, I think,” Jehan predicted.

Joly looked down at his sneakers, stomping his feet to keep warm.  “Indeed,” he said, thinking about the discussions that were probably going on in the backroom of the Musain as they spoke.

“I don’t think I ever told you how sorry I was about your friend,” Jehan said. “He seemed like an amazing man — I think he and I would have gotten along well.”

Joly swallowed hard. “You would have, I think. You both appreciate the beauty in this world, I think. And Feuilly thought when he was drafted that he could make a difference somehow—” Joly trailed off and looked away, his head full of memories of their friend.

“You’ll just have to take up his cause, right?” Jehan asked, reaching out and touching Joly’s arm.

“I guess so?” Joly said, his voice cracked with uncertainty.

Jehan moved closer and took him gently by the shoulders. “The movement needs men like you, Joly. Les Amis needs you.”

“I don’t know, Jehan,” Joly said, shaking his head. “What Combeferre is doing—” He stopped himself, knowing he’d been sworn to secrecy.

Jehan searched Joly’s agitated face, somehow wise beyond his years as he asked Joly, “You love Combeferre, don’t you?”

“I do,” Joly croaked. He had never put the word “love” and “Combeferre” together in a sentence — but as soon as the words were out of his mouth he knew it felt true.

“Then do it for him,” Jehan urged. “If not for Feuilly, or for Les Amis — for him.”

Joly stared at Jehan for a long moment. His mind was racing with an idea that had been percolating in the back of his mind for weeks bubbled to the surface — a way that he could finally, in his own little way, honor the memory of Feuilly.

And finally give Combeferre the help he needed.

Not even an hour later, Joly made his way through the noisy, smoky Musain and approached  Bahorel, who was standing guard outside the door to the backroom.

“I need to talk to them,” Joly said, raising his voice to be heard.

Bahorel took one look at Joly’s somber face and opened the door without hesitation. Inside Enjolras, Combeferre and Courfeyrac were arguing so ferociously over a stolen floor plan of the administration building that they did not hear him enter.

Joly approached Combeferre, who was pacing the room furiously, running his fingers through his blond hair. Joly planted himself in front of his agitated lover and pressed an object into his hand — a single key.

“This will get you into my lab,” Joly told Combeferre, who looked at him with a puzzled expression. “It opens the side door, closest to the quad. There’s never anyone in the building after midnight, so if you set it to go off late at night, the only things you’ll hurt are some flasks and beakers.”

Out of the corner of his eye Joly could see Enjolras nodding and Courfeyrac beaming at the idea. Combeferre’s mouth fell open for a minute, and then he pulled Joly into a tight embrace.

“Thank you,” he whispered in Joly’s ear.

* * *

 

Grantaire slammed another shot, trying as he had every night since he had left Enjolras’s apartment to drown the buzzing in his head, the sorrow, the fear, the worry, and the heartbreak. They weren’t going to help a damn thing, and he had been a fucking idiot to ever think otherwise.

He hadn’t seen Enjolras since that day through mostly creative avoidance, spending most of his time getting stoned and painting in his apartment and only going out for more grass, more booze, or more paint. Every few days he required actual human contact and so went to class, or, more likely, to the bar.

Which was where he was now, halfway through a bottle of Jack with a bar tab he was going to regret if he could bring himself to give a fuck about anything other than his ex-boyfriend doing something monumentally stupid and getting himself locked up or killed.

When last call was announced, Grantaire did two more shots in quick succession, tossed some bills on the bar, and stumbled outside. It was cold and he should have worn a warmer coat but fuck it.

Fuck everything.

He decided to risk cutting through campus, figuring the likelihood of running into Enjolras at 1 in the morning was pretty low. Not that he was thinking about Enjolras. That was what all this was about — trying to forget about Enjolras.

Of course, that was easier said than done, and he hadn’t yet found out the magic amount of pot and booze that would do it. The best he could hope for was temporarily suppressing everything. And hey, if that’s what it took to get through…

Stumbling over a crack in the sidewalk, Grantaire almost fell, only just managing to catch himself against a tree. He laughed, a bitter, dry laugh. “Why die for some cause when I can almost kill myself just by walking home?” he asked out loud, his breath fogging in front of his face. He glanced around at the empty quad, remembering far too well the protest and the teargas, the feel of Enjolras in his arms as he dragged him away to safety. He thought of the last time they spoke, and wondered for a moment why Enjolras hadn’t done anything yet, wondered what had tempered him when Grantaire’s words had seemed so useless, wondered who it had been since Grantaire had obviously never been enough…

No.

He wouldn’t let himself think of that. Instead, he held his arms out, shouting at nothing in particular, “Where’s your mob now, Enjolras? Where’s your anger and your fucking righteous fury? Where’s the revenge you crave so badly?”

As if in answer to him, a sudden BOOM burst through campus, almost knocking Grantaire over with its intensity, followed instantly by a sudden, piercing light, and Grantaire stared in horror as the building on the far side of the quad was obliterated before his very eyes.

He sank to the ground, staring almost unseeingly at the flames and rubble that were now what remained. The only thing he seemed able to say, in a short, sharp gasp, was, “Enjolras…”

* * *

 

Joly was fast asleep in his bed, alone except for the cat, when he was startled awake by a muffled explosion in the distance and a flash of bright light through the curtains.

_It’s done_ , he thought.

And he turned over and went back to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The telegram was based on actual telegrams sent during the Vietnam War. No disrespect was meant towards the individuals who received said telegrams and the memory of their loved ones.


	4. Chapter 4

“ _Dear Mr. Grantaire,_

_It has been determined that your involvement with the student activist group ‘Les Amis de l’ABC’ and the bombing perpetrated by this group in December 1967 has violated this school’s official code of conduct. Upon evaluation of your involvement in accordance with promulgated standards for the Department of Fine Arts, you are receiving an academic dismissal from the University._

_You have the right to appeal this decision following the procedure established by the University. To appeal, please fill out the Petition to Academic Affairs and return it to the University Office of Student Services. In order to be reviewed by the Undergraduate Academic Affairs Committee on Friday, January 12, the petition must be received by no later than 5 p.m. on Wednesday, January 10._

_Sincerely,_

_Fred H. Hannah PhD  
University President_

_Cc: Student File_ ”

Grantaire stared down at the paper in his hands, the taste of bile in the back of his throat. It seemed like the cruelest possible twist of fate, a blow on top of all the blows he had already suffered: first, losing Enjolras after Feuilly’s death; then, losing Enjolras probably permanently after the bombing.

It had taken more than his considerable bullshitting skills to get out of being charged with a crime, and understandably so. He was a known associate of Enjolras’s —  _associate_ , that was the word they used, as if that somehow covered the longing in his heart for Enjolras’s hand pressed in his, for just the hint of his scent one last time — and, worse, had been seen practically at the scene of the crime.

Of course, once details emerged, all charges against Grantaire were dropped, but still. For awhile, he had thought he would be going to jail, and all because of Enjolras.

Now, just when he thought his life might actually get back on track — as if there was such a thing, as if he could pretend that he  _had_  a life outside of Enjolras — he was being kicked out of school.

Again, all because of Enjolras.

A wiser man would have called a spade a spade and cast bitterness or anger or righteous fury and blame towards the man whose actions had done this to Grantaire. But Grantaire had never once pretended to be wise. And the fact remained that despite everything, despite the bombing, despite the aftermath, despite learning from Bahorel that Enjolras, Combeferre and Courfeyrac had disappeared, most likely never to be seen again, Grantaire still loved Enjolras.

And while the letter in his hand reminded him of all that he had lost because of Enjolras, it could do nothing to dim the memory of what he had found with Enjolras. All of which was something that he could never get back, because Enjolras was just gone.

When they had broken up, if that was the right term for it, Grantaire had felt empty and hollow. It was nothing compared to how he felt now. He felt as if someone had severed his last remaining tie to life, to caring, to whatever was keeping him here and keeping him going. What was the  _point_  if Enjolras wasn’t there?

He might have been able to pretend, at least, if he was still in school. Might have been able to try and force himself to still do something with his life. Granted, that something would probably not have been anything worthwhile, but it would have kept him busy enough to perhaps keep his mind off of things. And running the risk of encountering Enjolras on the quad or at the bar when he least expected it could at least have been something worth living for.

That was pathetic, and he knew it.

With a heavy sigh, Grantaire took one last look at the letter and tossed it onto his bed. There was no point in pretending now. He grabbed his jacket and left for the bar, honestly not really caring when or if he would be back.

* * *

 

“God _damn_  those motherfuckers!” Bahorel said to Prouvaire, brandishing a piece of official-looking stationery as he approached him in front of the administration building.

“Who?” Jehan asked, furrowing his brow. He had seen Bahorel’s temper before — but he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen him this angry.

Bahorel’s jaw clenched. “This fucking university. They threw me out. Expelled. Done. One semester away from my fucking degree and they fucking do this? This is bullshit, Jehan. Complete bullshit.” His face was red with rage.

Jehan stared at him, his mind still processing this information. “Because of the bomb?”

“Of course, because of the bomb. Never mind that I had no fucking idea what Enjolras was planning in that room. Never mind that if I  _had_  known I would have kicked his blond ass for even  _thinking_  about doing something so stupid,” Bahorel spat, his eyes wild with fury.

Biting his lip, Jehan looked worriedly at Bahorel. “You should appeal,” he said, shifting his weight back and forth uneasily. “Get a lawyer—”

“I am not going to get a lawyer.” Bahorel was adamant. “Fuck that. I don’t need these sons of bitches,” he said, giving the finger to the administration building. “And neither do you, JP.”

“Me?” The overwhelming feeling of dread that Jehan had been trying to suppress since the day of the bombing was building again in the pit of his stomach.

Bahorel looked at him almost pityingly. “They’re probably kicking everyone out who was associated with Les Amis,” he pointed out. “You, me, Grantaire — it’s a complete purge. And Christ, they threw Joly out as soon as he got arrested.”

“But I didn’t do anything!” Prouvaire protested.

“Doesn’t matter,” Bahorel said. “Guilt by association.” He noticed Jehan’s wide eyes and clapped him on the shoulder. “Go check your mail, Jehan,” he said softly but firmly. “We’ll get through this together. I’m probably going to stay with Éponine for a bit, and I know she’ll let you stay, too.”

The realization that Bahorel had already made plans to move in with his on-again, off-again girlfriend finally made Jehan realize that this was actually happening. He nodded and wandered away in a daze, making his way toward the student center. His path took him past the lab — now boarded up and cordoned off — and he swallowed hard as he walked by.

_Guilt by association,_  Bahorel had said.

Oh, Jehan had that in spades.

When the bomb went off, Jehan was in his dorm room, where he was reading his English assignment for the next day. With his dormmates, he ran to the windows to see where the explosion came from, searching with all of the rest for answers.

The answers started coming two days later, when he was stopped on his way to his afternoon class by a detective calling himself Javert, who asked him to come with him to the police station. They put him in an interrogation room, where he was shown pictures of Enjolras, Combeferre and Courfeyrac and asked about his involvement with Les Amis. He told them everything he had done with the group — only leaving out the part about having sex with Courfeyrac in the back room of the Musain — and Javert quickly realized Prouvaire knew nothing about the bombing.

When he returned to the dorm afterwards, still in a state of shock, he burst into Bahorel’s room.

“Les Amis bombed that building?” he asked Bahorel, who was sitting at his desk, working on a paper.

Bahorel looked up and nodded. “Just Enjolras, Courf, Ferre. And no one knows where they are right now, so they’re bringing everyone who they can think of in for questioning. They grabbed me this morning.”

“What did you tell them?” Jehan demanded, taking a seat on Bahorel’s bed.

“Not a fucking thing, because I don’t know a fucking thing,” Bahorel growled, turning back to his paper.

Jehan frowned slightly. “Does anyone know anything?” he asked. “I mean, other than Enjolras and the others, of course.”

Bahorel shrugged, not looking up, though his shoulders tightened. “I have no fucking idea. They were bringing Joly in as I was walking out — if anyone knew anything, he would. He worked at that lab, you know.”

If possible, Jehan paled even further, and he chewed his lip nervously. “He did?”

“For all I know Joly was in on it,” Bahorel said, finally turning around to face Jehan. “When he hooked up with Combeferre, he was like a different person, you know? I think he would have done anything Ferre asked him to,” he said with a shrug.

Jehan opened his mouth to say something, then quickly closed it — remembering that conversation with Joly outside the library.

_The movement needs men like you, Joly. Les Amis needs you._

He remembered that day so clearly — the words he said, and how Joly walked off, his spine stiff and his jaw set, as if he was a man with a mission.

And in the days since the bombing Jehan had been wracked by guilt — wracked by an overwhelming sense that it was his words that set Joly into action. If only he hadn’t said anything — if he’d just stayed and listened to Joly, maybe taken him out for coffee or drinks and asked him about his studies or his hobbies or his cat.

Guilt by association? Oh, Jehan felt it, every single day — every time he walked past the ruins of the building, every time Bahorel updated him about Joly’s interrogation and his subsequent arrest for conspiracy.

And when he opened up his mailbox and pulled out a letter just like the one Bahorel had been waving in the air, he leaned his head against the cool metal of the boxes, knowing his punishment had arrived.

And he wept.

* * *

 

“I found someone to take your case, Joly,” Bossuet said as they walked out of the police station together after Bossuet finally posted bail for his former lover.

Joly blinked in the sunlight, having been locked away for three weeks while Bossuet raised the bail money. “Who did you find? I thought you’d asked just about every lawyer in the city.”

Bossuet nodded, knowing that his friend’s case had been a hard sell to the various attorneys he knew through his job. “You know my friend Marius? His future father-in-law is a public interest attorney, and he agreed to take you on. For free. Said something about how he knows all about the experience of being in prison.”

Joly shuddered, thinking of the nights he’d spent trying to sleep on his uncomfortable cot, listening to other men cry and scream. “So what does he think he can do?” he asked.

“He thinks he may be able to get you a deal,” Bossuet assured him as they got into Bossuet’s car. “You tell them everything you know, and agree to testify if they’re ever found, and they’ll reduce your sentence.”

There was a brief moment of silence before Joly repeated, a little hollowely, “If they’re ever found.”

“No one has any idea where they are, Joly,” Bossuet explained as he started the car and drove off. “More than likely Enjolras or Courf made some connections with some sort of underground network that helped them get away. They’re probably out of the country by now — Canada maybe, or Europe.” Bossuet suggested.

“And Combeferre—” Joly trailed off, staring out the car windows.

“They think he was right there, that he was the one who set the timer,” Bossuet said, his voice hardening. “And that they made their plans to get away long before they set it off. No one saw any of them after the explosion.”

Joly nodded, not saying anything. So Combeferre probably knew all about their arranged getaway, never breathing a word of it to Joly, who was supposed to be his closest confidante.

Bossuet pulled over in front of Joly’s apartment building, put the car in park, and turned toward his friend. “Joly, listen to me. Forget Combeferre. Forget Les Amis. You need to make this deal. They ran away like cowards and left you here to clean up their mess. Don’t throw your life away, Joly. Please.”

“Thanks for the ride, Bossuet,” Joly said, pointedly refusing to respond as he opened the car door to get out. “And—and for everything else, too.” he said, his voice faltering.

Bossuet waved his hand. “It’s nothing, Joly. But think about it, man. Think really, really hard. I’m going back to work, but you can reach me there later, okay? Or call me at home tonight. Anytime.”

Joly nodded and got out of the car, slamming the door behind him. He took a deep breath, enjoying the feeling of fresh air on his face, then walked upstairs to his apartment. The apartment had been thoroughly searched after he was taken in, but no one had bothered to put his dresser drawers back or to pick up his clothes. They had found nothing incriminating, not even a stash of pot — the only thing that had been removed was his cat, who had been taken in by Musichetta.

Joly ignored the mess and lay on the bed, relieved to be completely alone with his thoughts for the first time in days. He stared vacantly at the ceiling, plucking at his shirt nervously.

It didn’t take long for his thoughts to wander back to the days before the bomb went off. He kept replaying the scene in the Musain over and over, when he pressed the key into Combeferre’s hand and watched his entire face light up like it was Christmas morning. Joly had been so confident no one would get hurt.

Joly never anticipated that the bomb would be much more powerful than Courfeyrac had calculated when he procured the device.

And he certainly never anticipated that there would be someone there — a graduate student Joly didn’t know, but who had been working late, trying to finish up his projects in a quiet lab.

A man with a wife and child who he would never see again.

_First do no harm_? Joly thought bitterly. Even if they hadn’t kicked Joly out of medical school, he would have quit. He’d made a mockery of his profession, demeaned the Hippocratic oath.

It certainly hadn’t meant anything to Combeferre.

_Oh, Combeferre_ , Joly thought. On the one hand, he was furious with him — for going through with the stupid plot, for not being more careful before setting the device. For even starting Les Amis in the first place.

And for disappearing without a trace — leaving him behind to clean up his mess, to take the punishment while they ran away to Canada or Europe or God knows where, their flight funded by Enjolras’s trust fund. If the FBI ever found him and brought him back, Joly felt sure he would scream at him and maybe even punch him in his stubborn face.

And then he would throw his arms around him and cry.

Joly had been so used to having Combeferre beside him — first as a friend, and then as a lover — that he felt his absence keenly. It was like he’d lost a limb — he had no one to confide it, to drink coffee with and argue about politics with.

And now he was gone. Probably forever.

Joly lay there for a long time, pondering a life without Combeferre. Eventually exhaustion overcame him and he fell asleep in his clothes, dreaming of shrapnel and blood and smoke.

And of Combeferre — whose features were already fading from his memory — whispering in his ear.

_Save yourself, Joly. Save yourself._

When he finally jerked awake, the clock on his bedside table read 4:37 am. Despite the late hour, he padded over to his kitchen and pulled the receiver off the phone and dialed Bossuet’s home number.

“Tell me what I need to do,” he said when Bossuet answered, his voice still thick with sleep. “Tell me how I can make this go away.”

* * *

 

By the time Grantaire was thrown out of the third bar in one night, he was drunk to the point where passing out or getting sick would probably be a necessity sooner rather than later.

This was not the first time he had drunk to this point in recent days; in fact, he seemed to be spending more and more time in this state, using what little money he had left to get and stay as drunk as possible.

Certainly he had done his fair share of smoking, too, but pot tended to mellow him out.

Grantaire did not want to be mellow.

He wanted to feel the alcohol thrumming through his veins, feel the pounding in his head the morning after, feel the numbness start creeping back over him as he started drinking again. It was the only thing he was able to feel at all.

Still, being unceremoniously tossed from the bar was never a good end to the night, and it was on unsteady feet that he began picking his way in the direction he hoped his apartment lay. Soon, though, he stumbled over the uneven pavement and would have fallen were it not for the lanky man who accidentally caught him as he tipped over. “Um, hello,” the man said, a little awkwardly, heaving Grantaire back to his feet.

Grantaire swayed and blinked at him, suddenly recognizing the freckled face. “Marius!” he exclaimed, trying to reach out to embrace him but missing and almost punching him in the face. “Marius Pont…Pont…Pontmarshy.”

“Close enough,” Marius said, smiling uncomfortably. “How are you, Grantaire?”

“Oh, I’m grand,” Grantaire told him, nodding. “Fucking fantastic.” He squinted at Marius as if dredging up a memory, and then grinned wildly. “You told Enjolras you were campaigning for Nixon in the coming election and he threw you out. That was fun.”

Marius shrugged, looking even more uncomfortable. “I don’t know if fun is how I would describe it,” he said, tugging on his collar as Grantaire leaned against him. “Enjolras at least made his opinion on Nixon pretty clear.”

Grantaire kept nodding, his eyes starting to close. “Don’t take it personal,” he told Marius. “Enjolras doesn’t like most politicians, ‘specially Republicans.” His grin widened. “You should have heard him one night when he got started on Barry Goldwater in the ‘64 election. But you probably supported him in 64, didn’t you?”

“I couldn’t vote in 64,” Marius said quietly.

Grantaire ignored him. “Do you think…do you think if Goldwater had been elected, this never would have happened?” He peered closely at Marius, who looked almost helplessly back at him, and nodded again. “Guess we’ll never know.”

To Marius’s surprise, Grantaire slumped to the ground, his shoulders shaking with mostly-silent sobs. Marius looked around wildly, unsure what to do with a crying, drunken man he was only tangentially friends with, and noticed where he was. It took more effort than Marius could say to grab Grantaire by the armpits and drag him across the street, where, thankfully enough, his friend Éponine lived, and it was a miracle that she was even home.

Éponine took one look at Grantaire, sighed heavily, and gestured for Marius to dump him on the couch. “Thanks, Ponine,” Marius said earnestly. “I didn’t know what else to do with him.” Though Éponine gave Marius a tight smile, her expression was troubled, and Marius paused only to whisper to Grantaire, “I’m so sorry about everything”, before leaving.

Though Grantaire did not acknowledge Marius’s departure, his sobs at least had lessened, and Éponine sat down next to him, pursing her lips. “You’ve got to pull it together,” she told him firmly. “Seriously, I know you’re going through a shitty time right now, but do you honestly think Enjolras would want this?”

“I honestly don’t think Enjolras would give a fuck,” Grantaire said hollowly. “He left me here, after all.”

Éponine sighed and shrugged. “And that sucks, but it could be worse. He could be in love with someone else. Or, hell, he could be dead. I understand what you’re going through, but you’ve got to get over it.”

Grantaire’s mood changed in a flash. He sat up, his eyes blazing with anger. “You have no  _fucking_  clue what I’m going through,” he snarled, though his drunkenness still caused him to sway slightly as he pointed at her. “You’ve never been betrayed like I have. You’ve never lost someone like I have.” He pointed a wavering finger in her face as he spat, “And above all, you’ll never understand a damn thing because you’re a  _girl_  and can’t get drafted.”

For a moment, Éponine just stared at him. Then she slapped him, hard enough to send him reeling backwards. “I would gladly go serve in Vietnam if it meant that Feuilly was still alive or Bahorel wasn’t running the risk of being drafted, or hell, even if brought Enjolras back,” she shouted at him. “And that’s the difference between us. You’re right, I don’t understand, because unlike you, I’m not selfish and fucking…fucking pathetic!”

Grantaire glared at her, too drunk to consider making amends, and she took a deep breath before telling him, her voice even, “I thought I’d let you stay the night for Bahorel’s sake, but fuck that. Get the fuck out of here.”

It was one of those things Grantaire wouldn’t remember, the walk from Éponine’s back towards his place. He was drunk, and he was so goddamn alone and he had fucked so much up that it was all he could do to keep putting one foot in front of the other. What he would remember was ending up on the quad, even if he had no clue how he got there. And he would certainly remember sitting down hard on the grass directly in front of the cordoned off shell of the lab.

He gripped his hair as he stared at what would amount to Enjolras’s legacy. That’s all Enjolras had left behind: rubble and ruins and a hopelessly shattered heart. And yet…

“I still love you,” Grantaire whispered, not caring that Enjolras couldn’t hear, that Enjolras would never be able to hear those words from him again. “And I always will.”

* * *

 

Prouvaire lay on his stomach on a mattress on the floor of the darkened apartment, wearing nothing but a pair of ratty pajama bottoms. All of the shades had been pulled against the bright midday sun, and the radiators rattled and clanked, trying to generate heat. Jehan was smoking a cigarette — though he wished he was smoking something more potent — and trying to write. He had mostly abandoned his poetry for politics since Les Amis came along, but he had lost all interest in the war or the protests that still continued on campus.

But although he stared at his notebook for hours, the words always failed to come.

Since the day he and Bahorel had left campus and moved in with Éponine, Jehan had spent most of his days in that room, smoking and wallowing in his melancholy.  Deep down he knew he needed to do something — to find a job, to buy some food, to find a stash of weed somewhere — but he couldn’t muster the energy even to make it to the bathroom to shower and dress. He had barely slept — he was sharing the room with Bahorel and Éponine, who came and went at all hours of the day and night, and who would argue and make up with little regard for Prouvaire’s presence.

Bahorel had plunged into post-expulsion life without stopping — attending protests by day, bartending at night — but Jehan felt paralyzed.

Was it guilt? Disillusionment?  He didn’t know.

As he took his last drag on his cigarette and crushed it on the saucer he was using as an ashtray, a knock came at the door. “Éponine here?” came a thin, high pitched male voice.

Prouvaire didn’t even look up, as he was used to a revolving door of miscreants coming through the apartment. “She’s working,” he answered.

“Jehan?” the young man asked. “Is that you?”

Prouvaire squinted through the darkness, finally making out the familiar face. “Parnasse? Why are you here?”

“I work for Éponine’s father,” Montparnasse replied coolly. “I haven’t seen you in a while — did you find another hook up for weed?”

Jehan shook his head. “I’ve been busy,” he muttered, picking up his pen, not wanting to tell this vaguely menacing young man about Les Amis or about his academic situation.

Montparnasse came over and sat next to him on the mattress. “What are you working on?” he said, craning his neck to look over his shoulder.

“Poems,” Prouvaire replied. “At least I’m trying to write poems — I don’t know, man. The words just aren’t coming.”

Montparnasse chuckled, then dug in his pocket and handed Jehan a single orange pill. “Here, this could help you with that.”

Jehan looked at him quizzically. “What is it?”

“Just try it,” Montparnasse said, standing up and brushing off his jeans. “You’ll see the world like you’ve never seen it before. Consider it a free sample. If you like it, come find me and I’ll sell you more.”

After Montparnasse left, Jehan pulled himself off the mattress and dragged himself into the bathroom. He paused for a moment, looking at his wan reflection in the mirror — then washed down the pill with a palmful of water.

The trip was like nothing he’d ever experienced before — and the poetry practically dripped from his pen.

And for the first time in weeks, the guilt disappeared.

* * *

 

“What do you plead?” The judge asked Joly, as he stood in the witness box, tugging nervously on the cuffs of his ill-fitting suit jacket. He had shaved off his beard and cut his hair — Marius’s further father in law, a hulking man named Valjean, had suggested he do so in order to look more like a vulnerable college student than a dangerous activist.

“Guilty, Your Honor,” Joly said in a half-whisper, staring out into the gallery, where Bossuet and Marius sat and watched him sorrowfully.

The judge glanced at him, then at the paper in front of him. “You have agreed to testify in this court about the bombing incident in exchange for a reduced sentence of 12 months in prison, plus five years probation. Is that true?”

Twelve months. A whole year of his life, locked away from the world. “Yes, Your Honor,” Joly gulped.

The judge nodded at the prosecutor. “Begin your examination,” he ordered.

And as the prosecutor prodded him, Joly spoke. He told them of about his education, his arrival in the city, his studies of medicine. He talked about the founding of Les Amis — and about his relationship with Combeferre. About the protests and the tear gas — and about Feuilly. About Enjolras’s fervor to take their activism to a new level and about Courfeyrac’s explosive connections. About the plan to set the bomb in the administration building.

And about how he’d given Combeferre the key to his lab instead.

As he recounted that evening in the Musain, he could see a figure slip into the courtroom and take a seat in the back row.

Bahorel, the man who cursed at lawyers, the man who swore he’d never set foot in a courtroom unless compelled, had arrived.  He had visited Joly at his apartment the previous day, questioning if it was a good idea for him to take the deal.

“I don’t trust them, Joly. Fucking lawyers. You should fight this, man,” he had urged. “Make them put you on trial. Their case is pretty shoddy, if you ask me.”

Joly just shook his head. “It’s better this way, Bahorel. Better if I take the punishment.”

Bahorel got up and paced around Joly’s apartment for a while. “You do know that you’re guaranteeing that those three assholes will never come back.”

Joly swallowed hard. “I know,” he said, his voice hoarse with emotion.

Bahorel stopped in his tracks, watching his friend. “I’ll be there for you, man. Come see you every week. I promise.”

Joly was silent, but he had smiled up at him gratefully,

Now, as Bahorel watched, his brow crinkled in concern, Joly finished speaking, waiting expectantly for the prosecutor to signal his satisfaction with Joly’s account.

At the prosecutor’s nod, the judge turned to Joly one last time. “Do you also swear to testify against Enjolras, Combeferre, and Courfeyrac if they are apprehended?” he asked sternly.

Joly paused, gnawing on his lip, looking at the ground.

“Yes,” he whispered.

And as he was led out of the courtroom in handcuffs, for the first time since his ordeal began, Joly’s green eyes filled with tears.

It was finished.

* * *

 

“Bahorel, you gotta do something about your friend.”

The headache that had started that morning while watching Joly’s arraignment and thankfully receded now reemerged in full force, and Bahorel pinched the bridge of his nose. He had just arrived at his shift at the bar, and the very last thing he wanted to deal with right now was Grantaire, who was undoubtedly the friend that his fellow bartender was referring to.

Well, that wasn’t quite true — the very last thing Bahorel wanted to deal with right now was people, but that wasn’t really an option at this point. “What’s he done this time?” he asked instead, hoping that it wasn’t anything that would involve Bahorel having to clean up vomit. Again.

“Honestly?” The other bartender frowned at him, and there was concern in his voice as he said in undertones to Bahorel, “I think he’s legitimately trying to drink himself to death.”

Bahorel swore under his breath and ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “Can you stay another five minutes?” he asked, hoping he sounded wheedling enough to get the guy to do a favor for him. Luckily, the guy just shrugged and nodded and Bahorel went out around the bar, figuring he’d find Grantaire in his usual corner.

Sure enough, there was the man, half-slumped over, almost-empty whiskey bottle in front of him. He didn’t even look like he was breathing, and Bahorel crossed to him as quickly as possible. “Grantaire,” he said sharply, and when Grantaire didn’t even look up at him, he grabbed his arm and shook him. “Grantaire!”

Now Grantaire managed to look up, though his eyes seemed unfocused and he didn’t really seem to recognize Bahorel at first. Then he smiled, and Bahorel almost recoiled, because that smile was completely unlike Grantaire, whose grins erred either on the side of sardonic or genuine friendliness, and this smile was neither. Instead, it was a harsh stretching of his mouth in a way that seemed far more like a grimace. “Bahorel,” Grantaire pronounced. “What do you want?”

Bahorel shook his head and reached out for the bottle. “I want to make sure you’re not going to drink yourself to death.”

A wild, almost hysterical laugh escaped from Grantaire, and his grip on the bottle tightened. “Better to die from drinking here than a festering, stinking swamp, don’t you think?”

“What are you talking about?” Bahorel was used to seeing Grantaire in all stages of wasted, and even more so since Enjolras vanished, but this was something he had never seen before. Grantaire swayed on his barstool, his eyes completely dead as he kept smiling that same horrible smile. “Grantaire, what’s happened?”

Grantaire slid a piece of paper over to Bahorel and turned back to the bar to pound another shot. Bahorel quickly scanned the page and had to bite back the numerous swears that sprang to mind.

“ _SELECTIVE SERVICE SYSTEM  
ORDER TO REPORT FOR INDUCTION_

_GREETING:_

_You are hereby ordered for induction into the Armed Forces of the United States, and to report at THE LOBBY OF THE U.S. POST OFFICE, LANGDON ST. & GRAND RIVER AVE. on Jan. 29, 1968 at 6:30 A.M. for forwarding to an Armed Forces Induction Station._

_Willful failure to report at the place and hour of the day named in this Order subjects the violator to fine and imprisonment. Bring this Order with you when you report_.”

Bahorel stared in horror from the paper to Grantaire, who was still staring vacantly at him. “But this means…” Bahorel started, unable to get the words out, thoughts instead on the day when Feuilly had received a very similar letter.

“Yup,” Grantaire said, his grin almost manic. “I’m going to Vietnam.”


	5. Chapter 5

“ _THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA_

_To all who see these presents, greeting: This is to certify that the President of the United States of America has awarded the PURPLE HEART established by President George Washington at Newburgh, New York, August 7, 1782, to:_

_PRIVATE FIRST CLASS GRANTAIRE   UNITED STATES ARMY_

_For wounds received in action  
Republic of Vietnam  5 November 1968_”

The day Nixon was elected was the day Grantaire got shot, as if he needed another reason to remember that everything he had watched Enjolras fight for and, in the end, sacrifice his life as he knew it for, was completely worthless. He liked to think it was prophetic — when he bothered to think about it at all.

A little over two months later, after spending time in a VA hospital, and after less than a year of service, Grantaire was officially discharged from the United States Army because of the wound in his shoulder that would probably plague him for the rest of his life. Again, what a necessary reminder  _that_  was.

He hadn’t told anyone he was coming back. He had barely exchanged letters with everyone while he was over in Nam. What was he supposed to say? “ _My letters are a poor substitute for Feuilly’s. I’m_ _a poor substitute for Feuilly. Everything sucks and all I want is for none of this to have ever happened_.” Not even he was bitter enough to inflict that on his friends — what few of them he still had.

Really just Bahorel and Prouvaire, come to think of it.

_That_  was a depressing thought.

But upon getting back, he had mustered what courage he still had and called Éponine to see if she could find it in herself to help him find a place. Luckily, she had mostly forgiven him for his behavior and did so.

Even more luckily, her friend Montparnasse was around when Grantaire visited her, and thus Grantaire found himself a new drug dealer.

It showed Grantaire’s sad priorities: first, find an apartment near campus, since despite everything, he couldn’t bear to move away; second, find the easiest way to inject himself with enough smack to forget the world.

Well, that had been the plan at least, were it not for the knock on his door not even two hours after moving in, and when he didn’t answer it quickly enough, the man knocking burst in and picked Grantaire up in a bone-crushing hug. “You fucker,” Bahorel growled, because of course it was Bahorel. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me you were out?”

“Because I figured Éponine would,” Grantaire said weakly, wincing at the twinge in his shoulder. In truth, he had forgotten that Bahorel and Éponine had dated — were dating? He didn’t know; he didn’t really care — and had hoped to stay hidden for as long as he could.

Clearly that plan had failed.

“Anyway, what would you have done if I told you I was out?” Grantaire asked, feeling the headache already building in his temples.

Bahorel frowned at him. “What do you think I would have done? I’d have met you at the train station, I’d have helped you find a place, fuck, I would have taken you out for a drink or ten! You’ve been gone for almost a year, R! I…” He faltered slightly, looking suddenly uncertain, a look that didn’t fit well with Bahorel, normally so confident, and Grantaire flinched. “I missed you.”

Grantaire looked away, feeling tears prick in his eyes. There was so much he wanted to say, so much he wanted to tell Bahorel, and so much he never could. How could he possibly explain the nights he spent in Vietnam wondering if he was ever going to see his friends again? How could he explain that he had tried to make peace with his own death, knowing that he would most likely die? How could he explain the fact that he had come back and Feuilly never would and that for all Bahorel’s talk of missing him, Grantaire couldn’t help but feel like Bahorel would’ve traded him for Feuilly in an instant ( _that Enjolras, too, would have traded him for Feuilly, and if that were the case, then none of this would have happened, none of it…_ ).

He couldn’t say any of that. Instead, he shrugged, ignoring the throbbing in his shoulder, and muttered, “Well, I’m here now.” He drifted over to the table, hand closing around the waiting needle, and said, a little coldly, “Now if that’s all you wanted, I’d really like to forget that fact for the time being.”

“What do you mean…?” Bahorel started, crossing to him, and when he saw the needle, he stopped. “Oh.”

“Oh,” Grantaire agreed, a little grimly. He met Bahorel’s eyes for the first time, forcing himself to not look away.

Bahorel shook his head slowly. “You don’t have to do that,” he said, quietly. “We can still go out to the bar, still get drunk and act like none of this happened. We can invite Jehan, and — and Joly’s going to be out of jail soon…”

Grantaire laughed a little bitterly and shook his head. “I doubt they want to see me.”

“Of course they want to see you!” Bahorel said loudly. “We’re still friends. All of us.”

“If they want to see me, they’ll have to see me like this,” Grantaire said shortly, already rolling up his sleeve, revealing the marks and bruises that marred his skin.

Bahorel frowned at him, worry lines creasing his forehead. “When did you start with that?” he asked quietly, eyes lingering on the scars, some of which were older than others.

“In Nam. It’s incredible what shit you can get for cheap over there. More smack than you could do in your life, a cheap fuck if you need it, man or woman. Course, smack’s not the only thing I probably picked up there, if you know what I mean.” He leered at Bahorel, who didn’t look amused. Grantaire’s flash of good mood left him instantly. “Look, either stay or go, I don’t give a fuck, but I’m doing this, so.”

He picked up the needle to prove his point, and Bahorel held his hands up. “Fine, fine, I’ll go. Just…” He hesitated, and then added, “You know where to find me. We do still want to see you.”

Grantaire just shrugged, looping his belt around his arm and ignoring Bahorel as he quietly left. He closed his eyes for a brief moment, trying to understand. How could any of them want to see him?

He didn’t even want to see himself.

And so the needle found its mark.

* * *

 

The first thing Joly noticed about life outside was the quiet.

Prison was a 24 hour cacophony, a chorus of clanking doors and snoring inmates, punctuated by an occasional scream of pain — or sometimes of pleasure. Every minute of the day, there was someone else nearby — a guard, another inmate, the staff of the infirmary where he spent a good deal of his time battling maladies both real and imagined.

But now, with the door to his apartment shut behind him, he was finally completely alone.

Joly felt fortunate to actually have a place to live when he was released: Bossuet had managed to sweet talk the landlady into renewing his lease, while Bahorel had persuaded Jehan to tap into his still-healthy bank account to pay the rent. So everything was still the same — the single wrought iron bed, the utilitarian kitchen table, the stacks of books everywhere.

Everything was the same — except, of course, its occupant.

He wasn’t quite sure what he wanted to do first — did he want to eat pancakes and a steak and his mother’s green bean casserole?  Did he want to sink into his bed and cradle his pillow and sleep for three days straight? Did he want to get drunk and stoned and just start the process of forgetting the past year and a half had ever happened?

A shower, he thought, recalling Marius’s father-in-law’s advice to him on his last visit: take your time.

He turned the hot water on full blast, the steam quickly filling his tiny bathroom. He stripped off his clothes — the same ones he’d been wearing the day he reported to the prison — and stepped in, letting the scalding water cascade over him. He reached for the soap and started scrubbing every inch of his skin as hard as he could, as if he could scour away the last year and let it rush down the drain.

Joly stayed in there until the water ran cold, then turned off the water and wrapped himself in big fluffy towel, so unlike the institutional sandpaper he’d been drying himself with the past months. He wiped the condensation off his mirror and stared at his reflection for a long time — he had lost 15 pounds off his already slender frame, which lent him a gaunt look, and his hair, now cropped short, stood up in four different places.

But he still somehow could not look himself in the eye.

Joly found his bathrobe - still hanging behind the door where he had left it — and tied it around himself as he wandered into the kitchen, where he located a bottle of whiskey and a glass. He poured himself a generous amount and went over to his album collection, flipping past his collection of Stones albums in favor of some jazz.  He let the needle drop on his record player and flopped into his one armchair, gulping down the whiskey as his apartment filled with the sounds of Coltrane.

The quiet had been too much.

As the alcohol flowed through his bloodstream, Joly found himself gazing around his apartment — his eyes finally settling on a framed photograph on his bookcase. It was taken back in the fall of 1967, not long after he and Combeferre had become a couple. Courfeyrac took the picture, he recalled, as they sat at a table by the lake in the fading evening light. Joly was making a face at the camera, while Combeferre leaned in to touch his forehead to Joly’s, his eyes looking off to the side — most likely at Enjolras, Joly thought, who was sitting nearby, his mind most likely on their next rally.

All of them gone forever.

Joly stood up and picked up the frame, weighing it in his hands for a long time as he thought about his past — about his friends, about the man he loved. He had almost forgotten what Combeferre looked like, but all of sudden the memories came rushing back to him.

But the rush was too much, too fast — he couldn’t go back there again.

Not now.

Maybe not ever.

And he opened up the window and pitched the photograph onto the pavement below.

* * *

 

“No work today?” Bahorel asked, as he slid a beer across the bar to Jehan. It was only 3:00, so the bar was mostly empty except for a couple of ancient drunkards in the corner.

Jehan shook his head as he lifted the bottle to his lips. “We closed early — the owners wanted to watch the inauguration,” he said with a casual shrug.

Bahorel looked perplexed as he wiped down the bar. “A head shop owner who voted for Nixon?”

Jehan rolled his eyes. “Nah, he said something about wanting to mourn the death of America or something. I picked up a stash for tonight, though, so that’s all that matters.”

Bahorel nodded sagely. He had been pleased that Jehan had finally managed to hold on to a job, after spending most of the spring on a perpetual acid trip that led to the writing of increasingly incomprehensible poetry. This was followed by a summer road trip out to California in a VW bus with the execrable Montparnasse and his surly band of rogues. a trip that Bahorel was convinced would end with Jehan bloodied and abandoned in a ditch on the side of the road somewhere.

Yet in September he appeared back in town - his hair was shaggier than ever, and he had finally managed to grow a full beard, but his blue eyes were clear and vivid. Bahorel invited him to move into his new apartment - he had finally saved up enough money to leave the Thenardier’s squalid quarters — on the condition that Jehan find himself a job. Prouvaire nodded seriously, and went out and quickly landed two part-time jobs — one at a used bookstore, and a second at the head shop.

“Books and smokes,” Jehan said at the time, a satisfied grin crossing his face. “All a man needs in life.”

Bahorel had tried to get him to come to political rallies, but Jehan always refused. Bahorel, who had spent most of 1968 working on the presidential campaign — even “getting clean for Gene” for a time — tried to argue with him, tried to convince him of the need for political change.

But Jehan’s interest in politics — or indeed, in doing anything more than getting high and getting picked up by men in bars — died the night of the bombing.

And Bahorel suspected he still hadn’t come to terms with his own perceived culpability.

“So you know Joly got out last week,” Bahorel said casually, as he started putting clean glasses away under the bar.

Jehan swallowed hard and started peeling the label off his beer bottle. “Did he,” he said flatly.

“Yeah, I had dinner with him last night,” Bahorel said. “He’s found a job at least — they hired him at that natural foods place near his apartment, I guess. But I get the sense he’s lonely, you know?”

“Is he now,” Jehan said, still not making eye contact with Bahorel.

Bahorel grabbed Jehan’s arm. “Go see him, for fuck’s sake. He just got out of jail, he got fucked over by his best friend — he needs all the support he can get. Especially with Bossuet in DC now,” he pointed out.

“Joly doesn’t need me,” Jehan said flatly, his mind flashing back to the days before the bombing — memories he usually could drown in booze and dope. “Without me around, none of this shit would have happened in the first place.”

“Go,” Bahorel commanded. “If not for Joly, do it for yourself. Clear your conscience. Get on with your goddamn life.”

Jehan made a face and downed the rest of his beer, knowing full well his friend was right. “Bring me another beer and I’ll think about it,” he said gruffly.

But even as the words were out of his mouth, they both knew it was a visit he needed to make.

* * *

 

Jehan knocked on Joly’s apartment door at 6:50 on Saturday night — he was early, he knew, but he had never been there before and he wanted to be sure he was there on time. He had a bottle of wine in one hand, and a stash of weed in his breast pocket — just in case things got awkward and one or both of them needed to relax. During the entire walk over Jehan rehearsed what he wanted to say — about that day on the quad, about the bombing, about his own guilty conscience.

“Hey,” Joly said as he opened the door, a wan smile creeping across his pale face. Gone was the determined mouth and the sharp tongue, replaced by hollowed cheeks and haunted eyes. Since he’d first talked to Joly on the phone to find a time to visit, he had pondered what those eyes had seen.

Far too much, Jehan knew now.

“How are things going?” Jehan asked awkwardly, shuffling his feet as he stood in the doorway.

“Not bad for a convicted felon,” Joly replied sardonically, the corners of his mouth turning up slightly. “Come on in,” he said, motioning for Jehan to follow him into the kitchen. Jehan put the bottle of wine down, shucked  off his jacket and threw it over a kitchen chair, taking note of the stack of unopened mail on the table and the pile of dirty dishes in the sink. Clearly Joly had not been spending his time since his release from prison cleaning.

“What have you been up to?” Jehan asked, shoving his hands in his back pockets and shifting his weight uneasily from one foot to the other.

Joly reached up and took two glasses out of the cabinet. “Working. Sleeping. Nothing much,” he said, not meeting Jehan’s eyes. “Do you want something to drink?”

“I brought you some wine,” Jehan said, gesturing at the bottle of red sitting on the table. “Do you want me to open it?”

Joly shook his head. “No thanks — unless you want some,” he said, still unable to meet Jehan’s eyes. “I never liked wine very much. At least not as much as Combe—” Joly stopped himself before he could say the entire name, as if not saying the name would erase what had happened.

Without thinking Jehan moved toward Joly and reached up to cup his cheek. “I’m sorry,” Jehan blurted, his rehearsed apology forgotten in the moment.

“Sorry for what?” Joly asked, finally looking directly at the younger man, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“I’m sorry for everything,” Jehan repeated. “I’m sorry for what I did. For what I said to you that day on the quad.”

“Jehan, it wasn’t your fault,” Joly said. “I knew what I was doing when I gave him that key. I just never thought—I never thought anyone would get hurt. And I never thought he’d just—just disappear—” Joly’s voice cracked as he spoke.

Jehan didn’t answer, instead pulling Joly into an embrace, rubbing his back and murmuring into his ear, “It’s okay, Joly. I’m here.”

And for the first time in months, Joly didn’t feel completely alone.

* * *

 

Grantaire had hoped that after that first visit, Bahorel wouldn’t be inclined to visit him again, but he had been unfortunately proven enthusiastically wrong. While Grantaire was content pissing away what money he had made from fighting a war he didn’t believe in and being shot, Bahorel insisted on dragging him out of his apartment as much as possible, even if just to the bar down the street.

Still, while Grantaire could allow himself to be dragged out of his apartment, he refused to allow himself to be dragged out of his wallowing. He didn’t think that there was anything that  _could_  drag him from his wallowing.

At least, until Bahorel visited one evening, unusually withdrawn and quiet. Even Grantaire, who was in between highs at the moment and so focused more in the feeling itching under his skin than anything else, noticed. “The fuck is wrong with you?” he asked curtly.

Bahorel’s frown deepened, and he looked away. “I got something today,” he said in a low voice. “And I don’t think that I can show you, but I don’t think that I can not show you either.”

“What are you talking about?” Grantaire asked tiredly, rubbing a hand across his face and unwittingly tugging his shirtsleeve up, showing Bahorel that the track marks had gotten worse.

Something in Bahorel’s face tightened. “Then again, maybe I should wait until you’ve actually found a job and started doing something with your life besides shooting up.”

Grantaire just shook his head. “Whatever it is, it probably isn’t worth it,” he grumbled.

“Not even if it was news of Enjolras?”

Grantaire’s heart seemed to stop and he gaped at Bahorel, who stared steadily back at him. “News…news of Enjolras?” Grantaire breathed, not daring to hope, not trusting to hope when he had given up hope so long ago. “What news?”

A muscle worked in Bahorel’s cheek as he looked at Grantaire, and Grantaire turned desperate. “Please, Bahorel, please — please don’t keep this from me. Whatever it is, good or bad, please, I…I need to know.”

“It’s not much,” Bahorel said, slowly. “Honestly. A quick postcard from Courfeyrac, saying that they just wanted to let us know they were safe. All it said of Enjolras is ‘Enjolras sends his regards’.”

Grantaire closed his eyes, hardly breathing, though his heart instead of stopping now seemed to be racing. Enjolras was all right. Enjolras wasn’t rotting in jail somewhere, or worse, dead. Enjolras was  _alive_ , and Grantaire might be able to find him. “Was there a return address?” Bahorel hesitated again, and Grantaire begged, “Please, Bahorel, I need to write to him, I need to talk to him one last time just to tell him…just to tell him everything. Please! He’s the only thing that kept me going.”

This was not hyperbole meant to sway Bahorel. Even now, Grantaire could remember far too well the gunfire, the confusion, the smoke, the terrified young Viet Cong soldier with trembling hands who had squeezed the trigger. Even now he could remember the pain in his shoulder and the taste of blood in his mouth. Even now he could remember just wishing that he would die quickly rather than lingering.

But even now he could remember seeing Enjolras, picturing those fierce blue eyes, those golden curls, those hands, so strong but gentle when laced with his. And Enjolras’s voice, urging him, begging him to hold on.

Even now he could remember that Enjolras was the only thing that allowed him to survive.

And he had to  _tell_  Enjolras that, had to let him know, had to…

Had to do  _something_.

“Please, Bahorel,” he whispered one more time.

Bahorel nodded slowly and pulled the postcard out of his pocket. “I don’t know if this address is where they’re staying or not,” he warned. “It could be a fake or it could have been temporary. But…here.”

Grantaire took the postcard with trembling fingers and whispered, “Thank you.” Bahorel clapped him on the shoulder and left, but Grantaire barely even noticed, staring down at the address written clearly on the postcard.

He crossed to his desk, sat down, and began writing.

“ _ ~~My dearest Enjolras~~_ ”

“ _ ~~Dear Enjolras~~_ ”

“ _Enjolras,_

_I miss you. I love you. I’ve been to Nam and back and I still need you_ _…_ ”

He wrote for hours, mostly crossing things out and crumpling up pieces of paper to throw out, but it didn’t matter. He was writing to  _Enjolras_ , and that was all that mattered.

And for the first night since being back from Vietnam, the needle and the smack stayed untouched in his drawer.


	6. Chapter 6

“ _Dear Enjolras,_

_I hope everything is well with you. I feel like spring is finally beginning to settle in here, that we’re finally getting past the worst part of winter. I don’t know what things are like up by you, since you’re further north — I think, anyway._

_Things have pretty much been the same here. I’m working, not much, but enough to get by, taking commissions for my art again. And sometimes I help out at the bar where Bahorel works. I still have most of my wages from Nam saved up, so I can draw on that if need be._

_I miss you—_ ”

A knock sounded on Grantaire’s door and he paused mid-sentence, frowning up at it. “Just a second!” he called before turning back to the letter, crossing out what he had written and hastily finishing:

“ _I wish you were here, but I’m glad to know you’re safe. Give my best to Combeferre and Courfeyrac._

_Love,  
Grantaire._”

Grantaire stood and headed to the door, opening it to find Bahorel leaning casually against the doorjamb, eyebrow raised. “Did I interrupt something?” he asked, smirking slightly.

Rolling his eyes, Grantaire stepped back to allow Bahorel in to his apartment. “Ha ha,” he said drily. “If you must know, I was in the middle of writing a letter to Enjolras.”

Bahorel froze for a moment before asking in far too casual of a voice, “Oh, so you’re still writing to Enjolras, then?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Grantaire asked, just as casually, heading into the kitchen to grab them both a beer. “It’s…oddly therapeutic. Knowing that he’s still out there, that I can still communicate with him…” He shrugged and tossed the beer can at Bahorel, who caught it deftly, though he was frowning at Grantaire. “Is that really such a bad thing?”

Bahorel sank down onto the couch, taking a tentative sip of beer before asking, “So you’re fine just writing to him? You don’t secretly expect him to be able to start writing you back?”

Grantaire, of course, had been secretly hoping for that for weeks now, but quickly squashed that feeling as he sat next to Bahorel. “Of course not,” he said instead, though he toyed almost nervously with the fraying cuff of his corduroy bellbottoms. “I mean, I know that he can’t…that he can’t come back…”

His words faltered though, because he honestly didn’t know that. There  _could_  be a way, right? Since Enjolras now knew that Grantaire still loved him and missed him. They could work things out, surely. If Enjolras couldn’t come back to the US, well, Grantaire could always move up to Canada. Or, hell, they could move somewhere else altogether. Just as long as they were with each other.

Bahorel made a noncommittal grunt and took another swig from his beer can. “And the smack?” he asked abruptly, purposefully avoiding looking at Grantaire, who stilled.

“What about it?” Grantaire asked, though his throat felt suddenly dry.

Now Bahorel did look over at him, his forehead creased. “Are you still using?”

Grantaire shrugged. “Sometimes,” he said, because lying probably wouldn’t help matters — Bahorel could easily grab his arm and twist it to see his track marks, had done so in the past, and Grantaire would rather avoid that if at all possible. “Less now.”

“And you don’t see a problem with that, with the fact that  _this_  is what you’re substituting for heroin?”

Staring at Bahorel, expression completely blank, Grantaire just shrugged. “Seems a better alternative to me at least.”

Bahorel shook his head. “I just think…”

He trailed off and Grantaire frowned. “What?” he asked impatiently.

“Nothing,” Bahorel said quickly, though the creases in his forehead seemed to deepen. “I just think maybe you need to get out more often.” He started to suggest something, then stopped, before saying, “Why don’t you come out with me and Joly? We grab a drink every now and then, and it’d be a good thing for you, I think.”

Grantaire shrugged and nodded, draining his beer. “That’s fine with me,” he said easily, because it was. He could handle going out once a week, having one night not dedicated to writing a letter to Enjolras or shooting up. He could do that. He could.

Or at least that’s what he told himself as he grabbed his jacket and headed out the door.

* * *

 

Joly had a routine.

He worked Tuesdays through Saturdays at the co-op, ringing the register, stocking shelves, helping customers sort through their produce choices. He welcomed the mindless nature of these tasks — he didn’t really want to think about anything more complicated than which varieties of granola they were low on or a clean up in aisle 5.

After work he went home, took a long shower, and ate a solitary dinner in front of the television. Television had become his favorite companion — he flipped on his little black and white set as soon as he came home every night, and left it on all evening, distracting himself with the white noise of game shows and silly sitcoms.

Joly never watched the news, or picked up a newspaper. The war and the protests raged on — and he remained mostly oblivious.

Joly did allow himself one night out every week — every Thursday he would meet up with Bahorel and Grantaire for a drink. The three men tried to keep the conversation light, but there were often strained silences when they would stare idly at their drinks, each lost in thought. Grantaire’s time in Vietnam and his obvious use of hard drugs — Joly recognized all of the symptoms, even though he’d never actually seen Grantaire shoot up — had sharpened his edges, darkened his outlook even more than it had been before the bombing. And Bahorel, though still the hale fellow well met, appeared to have aged 10 years in the past two — he already had gray hairs, and his forehead already showed deep creases. Being the caretaker for his friends was clearly taking its toll.

Several weeks after his conversation with Grantaire, Bahorel had told Joly about the postcard from Courfeyrac.

"Grantaire is writing to Enjolras," Bahorel had remarked equivocally.

Joly had nodded coolly, his face completely blank. “That’s probably good for him.”

"Do you want the address?" Bahorel had asked.

"No," Joly answered simply.

And Bahorel never mentioned it again.

Joly barely thought about Combeferre most days — when memories did resurface, it was always at night, when he was lying in bed, willing sleep to come. Prison had turned him into not only a hypochondriac but also an insomniac — he lay awake at night, thinking of all the possible ways he could die.

And most of the time he hoped it wouldn’t happen.

His memory of Combeferre got hazier with each passing day — no longer could he really remember what his voice sounded like, or how he slurred his words when he’d had too much wine, or how rough his hands were when he stroked Joly’s arm.

Or what it felt like to wake up next to him each morning.

There was a moment one day at work when he thought he saw Combeferre — noticing a tall, slightly stooped blond man with his back to him, examining the spices. He walked up to him, eyes wide, as if he’d seen a ghost, and poked him on the shoulder tentatively.

When the man turned around, revealing a much older man, Joly exhaled sharply.

Was it disappointment? Or relief?  Joly wasn’t sure.

The other constant in his life was Jehan, who had taken to showing up at his apartment every Saturday with beer and takeout. Since their reunion — when Joly had practically cried with relief when Jehan embraced him — Joly had developed a fondness for the younger man, who still brimmed with idealism even as he eschewed politics. He reminded him of a younger, more innocent time in his life.

Was it really only two years ago?

Their evenings together were quiet — Joly would play his jazz records, and Jehan would scribble in a notebook while Joly puttered around the apartment. They conversed widely, about music and poetry and art — about anything other than politics. Joly found himself looking forward to their conversations each week, finding himself buying albums or books just so he would have something to talk to Jehan about. He loved watching young Prouvaire get excited about something - how his eyes would widen, his words coming out in a torrent as he expounded on a favorite topic.

It reminded him a little bit of Combeferre - the passions were different, and Jehan was less intense, more subdued.

Joly liked it.

And wanted more of it.

And sometimes — when Jehan would giggle to himself, or purse his lips in concentration as he wrote — Joly was sorely tempted to go up to him, take him into his arms and kiss him.

But he didn’t. He couldn’t, really. He’d lost Bossuet to his own stupidity. He’d lost Combeferre to the stupid cause. He couldn’t stand it if he lost Prouvaire too.

So he stopped himself every time, telling himself it would be better if they were just friends.

And sometimes he even believed it himself.

* * *

 

Jehan was falling in love.

He had never been in love — in lust, most certainly, with Courfeyrac and the various other men he’d slept with since arriving at the university — so he wasn’t entirely sure what being in love was like. But every week, as their standing Saturday night dinner date approached, he found himself practically counting the hours until he would be standing on Joly’s threshold, waiting for him to open the door with his wan smile.

Jehan felt sure that the smile grew broader every week.

And he found himself thinking about Joly at odd moments — when something funny happened at the bookstore, or when he noticed that the sunset was particularly striking as he walked home in the evening, he longed to pick up the phone and call Joly to tell him all about it. He found himself writing down everything he wanted to tell Joly in his notebook.

Including the fantasies he had about the two of them together.

It was foolish, Jehan told himself. Joly didn’t want to be in a relationship right now. He needed his time and his space right now, needed to sort through everything that had happened, needed to heal.

But Jehan could be patient. He needed to be patient.

And when Joly was ready, he would be there.

* * *

 

Of the few friends that Grantaire still had, the one he saw least in the months following his return from Vietnam was undoubtedly Prouvaire. Probably because they hadn’t  _really_  been friends, not in the same way that he and Bahorel had been friends, or the way that Joly and Grantaire had been friends (there was something about dating the two leaders of a revolution that brought them together, something that only they could understand, even if neither of them talked about it now).

But when Jehan called him to ask if he wanted to get a beer, Grantaire agreed without needing to give it much thought.

And at first, everything seemed to be going well. They drank and chatted and kept the conversation mostly light, though they did discuss briefly their various drug habits, current and previous. But then Jehan drained his beer and set his glass purposefully on the table. “So how are you  _really_  doing, Grantaire?” he asked, his voice light. “With everything.”

Grantaire shrugged, uncomfortable, and looked away. “I’m surviving,” he said, finally. “Guess I can’t ask for more than that.”

"You should though," Jehan said seriously. He traced his finger around the rim of his beer glass, his expression contemplative. "Maybe you should consider letting go of the past, of…of trying to move on." Grantaire snorted and shook his head, draining his beer, but Jehan pressed on. "I know we’re not the best of friends, but even I can see that holding onto the past is only going to make everything harder the more it goes on."

Now Grantaire grip on his empty glass tightened, though his voice was calm as he replied, “You have no idea what you’re talking about, Prouvaire.”

He stood to leave, but Jehan reached out, wrapping his fingers around Grantaire’s too-thin wrist. “Don’t I?” he asked quietly. When Grantaire didn’t turn back, Jehan added in an even softer voice, “Some days I still blame myself.”

Grantaire turned back at that, his eyes dark. “That’s stupid of you,” he said roughly. “You have nothing to blame yourself for.” Jehan started to speak, but Grantaire cut him off, waving his hand dismissively. “Yes, yes, I know, you encouraged Joly, he gave Combeferre the key, and somewhere a butterfly flutters its wings and the entire world changes. But think about it the other way — if you hadn’t have encouraged Joly, they may have actually gone through with bombing…what, the admin building? Wasn’t that what they were thinking of?”

Jehan nodded, biting his lip slightly before whispering, “Yeah, that’s apparently what they were thinking of bombing.”

“So you see?” Grantaire said, half-smiling. “I don’t blame you at all. What happened in that lab was an accident, and at least I can sleep at night knowing that the man I love isn’t a murderer.” He shrugged. “Besides, I blame myself far more than you.”

“Why would you blame yourself? You had nothing to do with any of it!”

Grantaire shrugged again, his smile fading. “Because I wasn’t there with him.”

Jehan stared at him. “That’s…Grantaire, you never agreed with their more radical side! That’s…I don’t know,  _unhealthy_  to want to be a part of that! Don’t you think you would hate yourself if you had been involved in the bombing?”

Now Grantaire laughed, a dry, bitter laugh, and carefully eased his wrist out of Jehan’s grip. “I can’t imagine it’d be much different than the way I hate myself now.”

Then he left, Jehan staring after him as he walked away.

* * *

 

For the next week Jehan replayed the scene with Grantaire in the bar in his mind — wondering if he could have said anything that could help save Grantaire from himself.

Perhaps it was too late for Grantaire, he thought.

But he felt sure it was not too late for Joly.

"Let’s go out tonight," Jehan suggested as he arrived at Joly’s apartment on a warm Saturday night in April — without his usual bag of takeout.

"Go out?" Joly said, his face crinkling in puzzlement. "But we always stay here."

"It’s a gorgeous night, Jolllly," Jehan said, using the pet name he’d concocted over the past months. "Let’s go sit outside at Corinthe. Have a few drinks — enjoy being out in the world for a change."

Joly blanched slightly at the mention of Corinthe. “I haven’t been there since — since Combeferre. He and I went there the night — the night we first —” he struggled to get the words out.

"So it’s clearly a place you like, right?" Jehan persisted. It was the first nice day of the year and he wanted nothing more than to be outside amid the smell of flowers and freshly cut grass — especially if he could be with Joly too.

Joly shrugged. “I guess so. And I’ve been inside all day,” he admitted.

"Put your shoes on," Jehan said, his commanding voice surprising even him. "Let’s go."

As they stepped out into the spring air, Joly inhaled deeply. “This is what I missed most when I was in prison. No fresh air. I swear it made me sick all the time,” he said.

Jehan nodded carefully. It was the first time Joly had ever talked about his time in prison. “I can’t imagine,” he murmured sympathetically, even though he could not fathom the idea of being locked away for so long.

Joly looked at him with a hard glance. “I wouldn’t wish it on anybody,” he said simply, his face closing in such a way that indicated he didn’t want to talk about it anymore.

And Jehan knew better than to ask.

Corinthe was full when they arrived, but they managed to snag the last table outside, where they drank and ate and drank some more, Joly’s green eyes glowing by the light of the citronella candle on the table.

Jehan had never seen him so relaxed.

And he had never felt more hopelessly in love with him.

That night, as they were the last to depart Corinthe as it closed, they paused outside before going their separate ways, neither man wanting the night to end.

"I’m glad you made me do this," Joly said, scuffling his feet on the sidewalk, not looking at Jehan.

"I’m glad I made you do it too," Jehan said, the corners of his mouth turning up into a smile. "Maybe we can come back next week?"

"Maybe," Joly said, still shuffling his feet.

Without thinking, Jehan leaned in and kissed Joly sweetly on the lips, his heart beating so hard he felt sure Joly could hear it.

Joly returned the kiss for a moment —

then pulled away suddenly, searching Jehan’s face for a long moment. “I don’t think I can do this,” Joly said, his voice just above a whisper.

Jehan hesitated for a moment, then reached up and stroked Joly’s cheek with the back of his hand. “I know that’s true now,” Jehan said, his voice husky with emotion. “But it won’t be like this forever, you know. And when you’re ready — I’m here.”

Joly nodded slowly.

And Jehan could almost see the old Joly in his eyes.

* * *

 

Despite the frequency with which Grantaire wrote to Enjolras, he avoided checking his own mail whenever he could. For the most part, he didn’t want to feel that curl of disappointment in the pit of his stomach when he realized that there was once again no letter or postcard from Enjolras. He hadn’t checked his mailbox since March and wouldn’t have checked it now, except for an angry call from Éponine that other residents were starting to bitch about his overflowing mailbox to Thenardier, and if Grantaire brought the old man back into town, Éponine would personally come kick Grantaire’s ass.

So Grantaire hurried down to his mailbox, wondering what could possibly be overflowing, since it wasn’t as if he received much mail in the first place. As soon as he opened the little door, he instantly knew why he had so much mail.

Every single letter that he had sent to Enjolras was sitting in his mailbox.

Every single letter, stamped with the same exact stamp:

“CANADA POST /  POSTES CANADA  
RETURN TO SENDER / RENVOI À L’EXPÉDITEUR  
Unknown / Inconnu”

Grantaire held the bundle of letters with trembling fingers, and walked the flights of stairs back up to his apartment without even noticing where his feet were taking him. Enjolras had never received one of his letters. Enjolras didn’t know how much Grantaire still loved him, how much he still needed. Enjolras hadn’t read the words that Grantaire hadn’t been able to explain to anyone else, about his guilt, guilt over surviving, guilt over killing, guilt over existing. Enjolras had never been given a reason to think about Grantaire still. Enjolras didn’t know.

But Grantaire knew now — Grantaire knew how much of an idiot he had been, how foolish he’d been to put his faith in anything, how stupid he’d been to trust in something good happening to him.

He knew that he was pathetic.

He threw the letters into the trash can without even taking another look at them and locked the door to his apartment, his hands still shaking. Then he went into his bedroom and took the needle and baggie of powder from his nightstand.

It wasn’t like Enjolras knew or cared about this, anyway.


	7. Chapter 7

“ _Dear Enjolras,_

_~~How could you~~ _

_~~Where are you~~ _

_~~Why~~ _

_~~WHY~~ _

_I honestly don’t even know why I’m writing to you…_ ”

The pen clattered from Grantaire’s hand and he winced, looking down at his shaking fingers, which curled compulsively over the crumpled sheet of paper. It wasn’t the first letter he’d attempted to write to Enjolras, though he didn’t know why he was bothering to try. He had nowhere to send them, no one to read them, no one who gave a flying fuck about him.

Of course, he wasn’t really sure there ever  _had_  been someone who had given a flying fuck. Not about him. And the fact that it had taken him this long to realize that only made the self-loathing that much worse.

Abruptly, he stood, running his still-shaking hand over his face, rubbing his scruffy, half-grown beard almost subconsciously. The beard hadn’t been the result of any particular effort, only the result of him not giving a fuck about shaving. Blades took his mind to dark places, images of blood and death and—

No.

He barely made it to his tiny bathroom before he was sick, even though he honestly didn’t even know the last time he had eaten to have something to throw up. His grip on the sides of the sink tightened and he glanced up at his reflection. God, he looked  _awful_.

He could feel the familiar itch beginning under his skin and so tore his eyes away from the mirror and slowly made his way back into his bedroom.

Ever since the letters had been returned, everything had been at once muted and at full volume. The “important” things — his life, his friends — had all been muted, as if they were just obstacles drifting past Grantaire. But the other things, the bad things — the dreams and the memories and the shit that he had  _seen_  and the shit that he had  _done_  — they had been amplified until only one thing could shut them out: a needle slipping into his vein and chasing them away.

With his fingers shaking harder than ever, he opened the drawer of his nightstand to reach for the needle, pausing as he always did when he saw the scrap of paper next to his kit. It was the piece of paper with the address — Enjolras’s address, or so he had thought — written on it. He didn’t really know why he had kept it, except that he couldn’t throw it out. He had dedicated so much time and energy and hope to that address…

Not that any of it mattered now.

And maybe his friends wouldn’t be in the periphery if they could understand, but no one could understand. No one knew what it was like to have the love of your life disappear, and then, just when you were given hope, disappear again. No one knew, no one understood. No one, except—

Joly.

He hadn’t even thought about how this might affect Joly. He honestly didn’t even know if Joly knew about the postcard from Courfeyrac, didn’t even know if he’d tried to contact Joly. In truth, he hadn’t really thought about Joly and Combeferre in…well, in quite awhile. He’d been so wrapped up in his own misery—

Well, nevermind that now.

He took a deep breath before closing the door, willing the itch to stay under his skin and stumbling over to the phone, dialing the phone number that he had forgotten he’d known. “Joly? Hey, it’s Grantaire. I thought…I thought maybe you’d want to get a drink?”

* * *

 

Since his release, Joly had purposely stayed away from the Musain — its walls contained far too many ghosts for his liking. But Grantaire had suggested meeting there — Joly suspected it was so he could avoid the prying eyes of Bahorel — so on an unseasonably warm Friday night, he followed the familiar path to the bar, ghosts be damned.

The bar was full when Joly arrived, to his surprise. The owners had almost shut down after it was discovered that the plot had been hatched in the backroom, and their activist clientele had scattered to the four winds, not wanting to be associated in any way with Les Amis, but people had started trickling back in recent months. The crowd seemed younger, and somehow less political — they appeared to be more interested in finding new lovers than than in finding a way out of Vietnam.

The Musain, it seemed, had turned on and dropped out.

From the looks of it, Grantaire had done the same. His skin was sallow and his hair looked like it hadn’t been washed in days — and when he turned to look at Joly, his eyes looked completely devoid of life. The row of bottles in front of him indicated that he had occupied the barstool for some time.

“How are you?” Joly asked, squeezing between barstools to stand next to him, while signaling the bartender to bring him a beer.

“How do I look like I am?” Grantaire snapped, lifting his bottle to indicate to the bartender that he wanted another beer, not making eye contact with Joly.

“You look like complete shit, in all honesty,” Joly remarked drily. Maybe he was never going to be a doctor now — but he knew the signs of drug abuse from his volunteer work at the local clinic. “You’re using again,” he added.

It was not a question.

Grantaire nodded once, almost imperceptibly, still not looking at Joly. Joly chewed his lower lip, trying not to let his concern for Grantaire’s condition show, thinking it would probably push him away. “You haven’t heard from Enjolras, then,” he said carefully.

It was also not a question.

“Nope,” Grantaire said, elongating the single syllable. “And apparently he’s never heard from me, either,” he added, reaching into the bowl of peanuts across from him and grabbing a handful.

A look of puzzlement crossed Joly’s face. “What do you mean? I thought you were writing him all the time. Bahorel said you were sending them to that address in Canada—”

“Return to sender,” Grantaire said blankly. “Every fucking one of them.”

Joly’s heart sank. “So they’re not in Canada anymore,” he said in a strangled voice. He had been trying to forget Combeferre for so long — but as long as Grantaire persisted in his role as keeper of the Les Amis flame, there was a tiny glimmer of hope in the back of his mind that one day, out of the blue, a letter would arrive in Combeferre’s handwriting, explaining exactly why he did what he did.

A glimmer that was finally extinguished.

When the bartender brought him his beer, he sipped it calmly — but his placid exterior belied the turmoil underneath. He had thrown out Combeferre’s pictures, refused Bahorel’s offer to give him the address Courfeyrac had sent to him — but still, deep down in his furthest reaches of his mind, he wondered if someday they could be together.

But with Grantaire’s news, Joly could finally admit to himself that they had disappeared forever.

And it was time for Joly to get on with his life once and for all.

Joly gulped down the last of his drink and touched Grantaire on the shoulder. “Do you—would you mind if—look, I know I said I’d have a drink with you, but I—I have to take care of something I forgot,” he said, his words coming out in a torrent.  

Grantaire looked taken aback for a moment, then shrugged, lifting his drink to his lips. “Whatever you gotta do, man,” he said.

Joly pulled out his wallet and threw a couple of bills on the bar, then pushed his way through the crowd and out into the sultry evening.

And when he reached the street, instead of turning left to walk toward his own apartment — he turned right to go to Prouvaire’s.

* * *

 

Jehan pulled a piece of paper out of his typewriter and started reading it over, a pencil behind his ear. The good news was that since he’d tried to kiss Joly that night outside Corinth, he had been experiencing a surge of creative energy that he had never seen before in his life.

The bad news was that the poetry he was writing was uniformly melancholy.

He and Joly had been trying to pretend nothing had ever happened — still keeping their Saturday night dinner dates, although Joly no longer insisted they stay in every time. They still talked late into the night over music and drinks and an occasional joint, with only two topics off limits — the war and the kiss.

Every week Jehan felt sure he loved Joly even more.

And every week he despaired that his love would ever be returned — a despair he captured in both iambic pentameter and free verse, using metaphor and allusion to convey his sadness that this damaged young man didn’t love him back.

As he was proofreading his latest poem, he heard a knock on the apartment door — Bahorel was working the closing shift, and he had alluded to the fact that he hoped to be sleeping in Eponine’s bed tonight, so Jehan tossed the paper on the desk and padded over to the door.

He didn’t expect to see Joly standing there, fingering the hem of his t-shirt.

“What are you doing here?” Jehan asked, baffled by his sudden presence on his doorstep. “Come in,” he said, moving aside so that Joly could enter.

“I was out with Grantaire at the Musain, and with everything that happened I realized something I was too fucking stupid to realize before—” Joly hesitated, his brow furrowed with anxiety. “I realized I needed to be with you. Right now,” Joly finally blurted.

“Needed — needed to be with me? Why?” Jehan asked, searching Joly’s pale face for a clue as to what had inspired this visit. There was something different there, Jehan noticed, trying to figure out what had changed.

And then he looked into Joly’s eyes, noticing that the fire inside — a fire he had first seen that day on the quad, when he’d shot him a sarcastic look when Courfeyrac’s speech had turned angry — had been re-ignited.

And before either of them could say anything, Joly stepped toward Jehan, put his hands on both side of his face — and kissed him deeply.

Prouvaire was taken aback at first — then returned the kiss, feeling so full of emotion he thought his heart would burst out of his chest. His hands scrabbled at the back Joly’s shirt, trying to tug him closer as they kissed. “I still don’t understand,” he gasped when they came up for air.

“He’s never coming back for me,” Joly said simply. “I know that now. And I don’t even know if it would matter anyway, because I think I’m in love with someone else now.”

Tears welled up in Jehan’s eyes as Joly spoke. “You are?” he managed to croak.

“I am,” Joly said, kissing Jehan again and running his hands up under his shirt, causing Jehan to shiver. “Let me show you,” he murmured, pushing him gently in the direction of the bedroom.

* * *

 

Later that night, Joly lay on his side watching Jehan sleep — his arm tucked under the pillow as he sprawled on his stomach, his curls a tangled mess and his breathing light and even. Joly ached to reach out and touch his bare skin, but he didn’t want to disturb this angelic, moonlit vision.

He wasn’t quite sure why it took him so long to figure out a way forward, a way out of this entire mess. With Jehan beside him he thought he had finally found a way to move on from the past — and some hope for the future.

As he gazed at Prouvaire, he couldn’t help but think about Grantaire, thinking about him sitting at the bar, haggard and consumed by alcohol and bitterness. And God knows what else he was consuming or how he was consuming it.

He knew then he needed to find a way to give Grantaire the hope he himself had finally identified.

He turned back toward Jehan, who was stirring slightly beside him. “I love you,” he whispered, curling his long body around Prouvaire’s and closing his eyes.

And somehow, some way, maybe everything would turn out alright.

* * *

 

Grantaire was at that point of coming down from his high where he was desperately trying to hold onto the last vestiges before the cruel reality set in and he would have to start all over again. This was the not fun part of being a junkie. Not that there was a  _fun_  part, so to speak, certainly not for Grantaire, but still.

Things were not made better by a sudden knock on his door, which loudly broke through whatever illusions he had left. “Fuck,” Grantaire groaned, rolling over in bed, only just realizing his belt was still pulled tight around his bicep. “Fuck.”

He pulled off the belt with fingers that had not yet begun to shake and slowly made his way to the door, feeling like he was drifting, feeling like a ghost. He opened the door and froze. He had not expected Joly to be on the other side. “Can I come in?” Joly asked after Grantaire did nothing more than stare at him.

“Um, yeah,” Grantaire managed, stepping back to allow Joly inside. He didn’t bother apologizing for the mess, instead asking, more bluntly than he meant to, “What the fuck are you doing here?”

Joly looked taken aback for a moment, but then said, unexpectedly, “I was thinking about the other night. At the bar.”

Grantaire blinked, trying to rack his brain for the memory, which seemed elusive and unsurprisingly so, given how much he had been drinking and how much junk he had injected himself with afterward. “Um. Right. Anything in particular?”

Now Joly cracked a small smile. “Quite a few things, actually. We don’t we sit down and talk about it?” He hesitated for a moment as he glanced at Grantaire. “If you’re…up for it, anyway.”

Shrugging, Grantaire sat down on the shitty couch that had come with the apartment. Curiosity could keep the edge off for a little bit, or at least he hoped it would. Joly sat as well and worried his bottom with his teeth before saying slowly, “I guess what I wanted to talk to you about was letting go.”

“Has Prouvaire been making you read his hippie bullshit again?” Grantaire asked mildly.

To his surprise, Joly blushed slightly and shook his head, though his expression quickly hardened. “No, nothing like that.” He hesitated again before telling Grantaire in a strange-sounding voice, “When you told me about the letters, about the address not working, it was like something finally clicked in me. I’d been holding on to Combeferre, holding on to this hope that he’d come back or write to me or  _something_ , and I realized I was finally able to let that go and actually live my life.” He looked meaningfully at Grantaire, who just stared blankly back at him. “I think you need a similar realization.”

“What, that Enjolras isn’t coming back?” Grantaire asked, his voice still mild, even as his fingers dug into his thighs in an attempt to stop their shaking. “I’ve known that for a long time, Joly. Those letters…they didn’t prove anything.”

“But they could,” Joly said, suddenly heated, and he sat forward, his eyes flashing. “Don’t you realize? This is a chance for you, a chance to start over, a chance to finally stop blaming myself.”

Grantaire swallowed and looked away, his tone turning sharp. “You have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about.”

Joly snorted. “Really? You think  _I_  don’t know what I’m talking about when it comes to guilt and blame?”

Shaking his head, Grantaire muttered, “Fine, so maybe you understand guilt and blame, but this isn’t even about guilt, it’s about…fuck, I don’t know, me not being good enough or worth enough or whatever. There were so many things I could’ve done…”

“Has it occurred to you that you’re not actually mad at yourself?” Joly asked suddenly.

Grantaire glanced at him. “What do you mean?”

“Have you thought about the fact that you’re mad at Enjolras, and just taking it out on yourself?” When Grantaire was silent, staring at Joly with an unreadable expression on his face, Joly continued, “He left you. He abandoned you. All you wanted was to be with him, and he chose something over you every single time. And because of that, because of  _his_  decisions, you’ll never see him again. Are you honestly going to tell me you’re not a little mad at him?”

Grantaire licked his dry, cracked lips. “I…it’s not that easy,” he said automatically, his hand drifting to the crook of his arm and rubbing against the itch that was resurfacing with a vengeance.

Joly gave him a dubious look. “Really?” he said skeptically. “Because from where I’m standing—”

“Shut up,” Grantaire snapped, suddenly furious, and the next thing he knew he was on his feet, not bothering to hide the shaking. “Shut the fuck up. You don’t know what it’s like for me! Yes, you lost Combeferre, but while you were safe in a fucking prison cell, I was over doing every damn thing that Enjolras was fighting against! You don’t know what that was like!  _You_  don’t have to see those things every time I close my eyes!”

Joly stood as well, his expression dark. “And whose fault is it that you were in Vietnam? Who got you kicked out of school and made you eligible for the draft?” Grantaire shook his head, turning away, but Joly wasn’t done. “You’ve put Enjolras on this…on this  _pedestal_ , but you refuse to see what he did, the destruction and the ruin! He blew up a building, he killed a man, and if you keep going the way you’re going, he’ll have killed you, too!”

“Enjolras didn’t do anything to me,” Grantaire snarled through gritted teeth. “This  _isn’t_  his fault.”

“Then whose fault is it?” Joly challenged. “Yours? Mine? Who is to blame? Whose fault is it? Who did this to you? Who—”

“No one!” Grantaire practically yelled, his chest heaving with all the emotions he had tried his hardest to bury. “It’s no one’s fault.”

There was a long moment of silence before Joly asked, his voice so quiet it was almost a whisper, “Then why do you insist on blaming yourself?”

The words seemed to hang between them for a long moment before Grantaire just shook his head. Joly sighed and shook his head as well. “Here,” he said, a little gruffly, pulling a crumpled pamphlet from his pocket and holding it out for Grantaire. “The VA has been starting some rehabs specifically for veterans. You shouldn’t have to pay for anything. If you ever decide you want to get clean, anyway.”

Grantaire took the pamphlet without looking at it, instead looking up at Joly with wide-eyes. Joly refused to talk about the war, about veterans, about anything even peripherally related to Les Amis. For him to look into this, to look into services for veterans… “You…you looked into this?” he asked, his voice cracking. “Why would you do that?”

For just a moment, Joly hesitated, but then he said, almost impatiently, “Because I care about you.” His expression softened and he added, “Because we  _all_  care about you. We always have. We’re your friends.”

Grantaire nodded, nodded as if he understood, nodded as if he believed him, and felt something inside of him break. For so long…for so long he had thought that because Enjolras didn’t care, then no one could possibly care. He had spent so long trying to get the attention of that man that he completely forgotten about what friends he had here.

He didn’t remember sinking to the ground; he certainly didn’t remember starting to sob. He didn’t remember Joly sitting down next to him and pulling him into a hug. He didn’t see the worried look Joly gave him as he felt how truly thin Grantaire was, but he did feel Joly pull him that much closer. He burrowed into Joly’s warmth and just let himself cry.

A part of him had died when Enjolras had broken up with him, a part had died when Enjolras blew up that building, a part of him had died when he was drafted, and a part died every time he had killed someone in Vietnam. He had tried to drown the remaining parts of him in alcohol and heroin in hopes that when they died, as they inevitably would, it wouldn’t hurt so bad. It had never once occurred to him that they might not, that what broken pieces of his heart that he had left might instead find a way to be healed.

Finally, he pulled back from Joly and sniffled loudly. “I sound more like you than me,” he said hoarsely, the ghost of a smile on his face. He didn’t apologize — after everything, he didn’t need to.

Joly smiled as well, a small smile, and asked, perhaps unnecessarily, “So are you going to go get clean?”

“May as well,” Grantaire said bracingly. He paused and glanced around, not just at his tiny shithole of an apartment but at the world he had forced himself to live in, and said honestly, “There’s nothing for me here.”

Joly’s voice was quiet as he said, “We’re here.”

Grantaire’s smile widened and shook his head. “Nah. You’ve never been here.” They hadn’t been — his friends had always existed outside of the sphere of shittiness that had been his life post-Enjolras.

That was the truth of it — post-Enjolras. He could and did blame Vietnam, which had certainly not helped matters, but this, all of this, it had started with Enjolras.

But it would end with Grantaire.

So he let Joly pull him to his feet, though he swayed slightly. “Do you want me to clean out what smack you have left?” Joly asked, slipping into the calm tones of the doctor that he would always be, medical degree or not.

Grantaire didn’t even need to think about it. “Yeah,” he said, still hoarse. “Yeah, it’s in my bedroom, top drawer of my nightstand.”

Joly nodded and disappeared only for a moment, reappearing with Grantaire’s kit tucked under his arm. “Any other stash?” he asked firmly, and Grantaire shook his head. He’d had no need to hide smack in his apartment. Why would he have? Who would he have been hiding it from? Joly examined him carefully as if trying to see if he was lying, then reached out to tentatively grip Grantaire’s shoulder. “It takes a lot of courage to do this.”

Laughing lightly, Grantaire shook his head. “I’m going to have to call Bahorel to take me to the rehab because if I’m by myself, I won’t go. What kind of courage is that?”

“The kind that knows that real courage needs other people,” Joly said, simply.

Grantaire nodded slowly, though he didn’t have it in him to agree with Joly. Not yet. “Thank you,” he said, instead. “For everything.”

Joly patted his shoulder once more. “We’ll see you when you’re out.”

“Yeah,” Grantaire said quickly. “When I’m out.”

He watched Joly leave before sinking back to the floor. But for the first time in years, the longing in his heart wasn’t for Enjolras, but for himself.

Well, a part of it was for Enjolras. A part of it would  _always_  be for Enjolras. But he understood that part better, understood himself better, and so after only a small, self-indulgent moment, he got to his feet and headed to the phone. He had a call to make. And then…well, he had to pack. He wouldn’t be coming back here.

He didn’t know where he was going, but for the first time in years, Grantaire was starting to believe that maybe one day he’d get there.

* * *

 

Three months later, on a bright September Saturday, Joly and Jehan found themselves back at the quad where they first met almost two years before.

When their leases expired at the end of August, they had decided to move in together to an apartment on the outskirts of town — which meant that they tended to spend their time in their new neighborhood, rarely venturing anywhere near the university. But Bahorel had invited them to meet them for drinks by the lake, so they’d parked their car on a nearby street and made their way across campus to the student union. With Grantaire away in rehab, there was just the three of them left now, and they clung to each other like survivors of a shipwreck.

The quad was mostly deserted — there was a football game that day, after all — so Jehan felt comfortable slipping his hand into Joly’s jeans pocket and squeezing his hand without fear.

About halfway across the quad, Joly stopped, his eyes drawn to his former laboratory, now a construction site; part of the building had been demolished and a new, more modern glass structure was going up in its place.

He pulled away from Prouvaire and turned in a circle so he could take in the whole view — of the steps of the administration building, where Les Amis had given their speeches; of the grassy hill where the police had sprayed them with tear gas; of the sidewalk outside the library, where he had made that fateful decision to give Combeferre that key.

And his gaze finally settled on the lab, where he’d first looked into Prouvaire’s wide, innocent eyes and knew somehow their lives would never be the same.

“They’re finally starting to rebuild,” Prouvaire remarked, coming up behind him and wrapping his arms around Joly’s waist.

Joly leaned back into the security of Jehan’s embrace. “Aren’t we all,” he murmured.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A vert heartfelt thank you to everyone who has read, kudos'd, commented, etc.! We had a lot of fun working on this fic together, and we hope everyone enjoys the end!

“ _Dear Mr. Grantaire,_

_After careful consideration of your latest test results and meetings with your doctors, I am pleased to inform you that you have been approved to move from inpatient rehabilitation to out-patient continued care._

_As drug and alcohol addiction are lifelong struggles, included in this packet you will find materials about support groups and other care tips to look into as you transition back into society._

_Congratulations on your sobriety, and we wish you all the best._ ”

It was a stock letter that the rehab center partnered with the VA gave to everyone who was discharged, but Grantaire didn’t care. The first thing he did when he got out was to put it up on his refrigerator as a reminder.

Well, that’s a lie. The first thing he did was convince Bahorel to buy him some food, but  _then_  he hung it on the refrigerator.

The letter was a powerful reminder that for all of Grantaire’s previous insistence that he was worthless, that he couldn’t accomplish anything, that he was good for nothing, that he was a failure in all aspects of his life, that he  _couldn’t_  do it, he had been wrong. And if he was wrong about that, well, logic said he was probably wrong about the other less-than-favorable views he had of himself.

His time in rehab had helped with more than just his addiction, healing a part of him that Grantaire hadn’t even known could be fixed, something he had always assumed was beyond repair. But he had done just that, quite simply by learning to forgive himself, for everything he had done, and everything he hadn’t, and everything he blamed himself for regardless of if he deserved it or not.

And he learned that he did still have convictions, things he believed in. Some days, on the really bad days, it was as simple as believing that he could get out of bed and make it through the day. On others, on better days, he believed that maybe his world wasn’t quite as shitty as he had always believed. And on the best days, he realized that his convictions, such as they were, extended beyond Enjolras in a way he had never expected, that he had been so wrapped up in Enjolras that he couldn’t see his own potential for belief.

In particular, he began paying attention to the war again while in rehab. It was hard not to, being surrounded by other recovering soldiers, many whose experiences had been far worse than Grantaire’s. And the more he heard about their experiences, the angrier he became, and for the first time, he felt like he should  _do_  something about it.

He was starting over, after all. Why not start over as a better man?

Once he got out of rehab, once he got his living arrangements taken care of, finding an apartment not too far from Bahorel’s or Joly and Jehan’s, once he got a steady if menial job, Grantaire joined the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. And at first, it was mostly local stuff, and Grantaire was satisfied with that, easing into things.

But as time went on, as the group grew and expanded, his own convictions grew and expanded. When they asked if he wanted to march on Washington, he didn’t even have to think about it.

He did ask Bahorel to come along, not so much for moral support, but mostly because he knew Bahorel would never forgive him if there was a fight and he wasn’t there for it.

They marched on Arlington National Cemetery. They marched on the Pentagon. And they marched on the US Capitol Building, where, before the entire country that they had been sent to fight for, the veterans threw away their medals.

Listening to some of the veterans give speeches before throwing their medals away, Grantaire felt he understood better than ever what the fight, the cause, really was about, and he was more riled than he had been in years, and even mostly ignored the voice in the back of his head that whispered, “ _Imagine if Enjolras could see you now…_ ”

This wasn’t about Enjolras, and yet, inevitably, it was — it would always be.

So he cheered with the crowd when one of the veterans tossed his medals away and announced, “If we have to fight again, it will be to take these steps!”

And when it was his turn, Grantaire walked up to the microphone, looked out at the crowd, and said simply, “This one’s for you, Enjolras.”

And as he threw his Purple Heart medal into the trashcan on the steps of the US Capitol building, Grantaire felt a huge smile break across his face, his heart feeling lighter than it had in years.

Grantaire was free.

* * *

 

“I’m home!” Jehan called out as he unlocked the door to the apartment they shared. He tossed his backpack on the kitchen table and thumbed through the small stack of mail that was scattered there. Amid the bills and junk mail, he found a postcard with a photograph of the U.S. Capitol. Prouvaire immediately recognized Bahorel’s distinctively slanted scrawl.

 _“Dear J &J—_  
Having fun taking it to the man here in DC. We’ve managed to stay out of trouble (mostly) and remain sober (Grantaire, at least). Wish you guys were both here. Driving back the day after tomorrow —  I’ll call when we get back.  
Bahorel (and Grantaire)”

Jehan grinned at the thought of Bahorel taking his fight to Washington — if Nixon was smart, he thought, he should be quaking in his shoes.

“How was class?” Joly asked as he wandered into the kitchen and slipped an arm around Prouvaire’s waist, pecking him on the cheek.

“Oh, fine,” Jehan replied airily. He had enrolled in a small private college in town that was willing to overlook his expulsion from the university. “Everyone’s all worked up about the exam next week. It’s only Shakespeare, for God’s sake. I don’t know why they’re all so worried. Just read the plays, for God’s sake. How was your day?” he asked, pressing a kiss on Joly’s shoulder.

“Okay,” Joly replied with a shrug. “Looks like April’s going to be a good month for the co-op. Maybe we will be able to open the second store after all,” he remarked, sounding for all the world like the proud co-owner he was. “You saw the postcard from Bahorel?” Joly asked casually.

“I did,” Prouvaire replied, breaking away from Joly to open the refrigerator. “Sounds like they’re raising hell down there. I wish I didn’t have exams so I could have gone with them,” Jehan said, taking out a pitcher of iced tea and pouring himself a glass.

Joly was secretly relieved Jehan had been preoccupied with exams, but in their years together he had learned to keep his mouth shut. “But who would have taken care of me for a whole week?” he teased, coming up behind Jehan and snaking an arm around his waist as he sipped his drink.

“Oh, I think you are plenty capable of taking care of yourself,” Prouvaire teased him back, leaning into Joly’s embrace.

“I don’t know about that,” Joly murmured, kissing Jehan’s neck. “And I like when you take care of me. Or even better — when I take care of you,” he said, his hand slipping under the waistband of Prouvaire’s jeans.

“Joly, I have to study,” Prouvaire protested weakly, although he knew resistance to his boyfriend was futile.

“Later, my love,” Joly whispered in his ear. “Later.”

* * *

 

Grantaire came back from Washington a different man in many ways, just as he had left rehab a different man. If rehab had been about learning to forgive himself, then now was the time to learn to forgive Enjolras.

He wouldn’t make excuses for him — Enjolras had been young, sure, had just lost a friend, but had killed a man and then fled, fled without giving Grantaire a chance to say goodbye. Grantaire had learned the hard way that making excuses didn’t solve anything, didn’t make any of the things Enjolras had done (or any of the things that he himself had done) easier to swallow.

But he also knew now as perhaps he hadn’t really known or understood then that Enjolras, for all his wonderful aspects, was human, flawed, imperfect,  _human_. Grantaire had spent so much time admiring and venerating him that when it mattered, he had been unable to see Enjolras’s rough edges, the dark, dangerous streak that he had. But he saw it now, and he understood.

And in an odd, twisted way, it made Grantaire love him even more.

It was a very different kind of love now, so many years removed. He had clung for so long to the idea of being in love with the idea of Enjolras he had in his head that it took time to reconcile that with the idea that he was now really in love with the man that Enjolras had been back then.

Which made him want more than anything the opportunity to fall in love with the man that Enjolras was now.

Once Grantaire would have despaired that such a thing was impossible, would have given up whatever glimmer of hope he had to drown himself in alcohol and self-hatred. But not now. If there was a way, a way to bring Enjolras home or at least give him the option of returning home, Grantaire would take it.

So he began looking into the amnesty movement. Groups had been clamoring for amnesty for draft-dodgers since before Grantaire was even drafted, and he used what resources he could from them. Of course, Enjolras, Combeferre and Courfeyrac faced different concerns and different crimes, which meant that a lot more work was needed.

Enough work that Grantaire knew he needed help.

Bahorel was enthusiastically for helping, offering what knowledge he had gleaned from his pre-law courses. Jehan and Joly, well…they might be a harder sell.

So Grantaire invited them out to dinner, hoping that a conversation might ease them into things. But all his attempts to casually turn the conversation onto the war were met with uneasy glances from Jehan and silence from Joly.

And so finally, Grantaire came out and said it. “I’m thinking of looking into an amnesty effort for Enjolras, Combeferre, and Courfeyrac,” he said carefully. “As the war winds down — and hopefully the war  _will_  wind down permanently — more and more people are realizing that it was wrong, that the draft was wrong, that all the things they were protesting were wrong. And maybe with time, that will be enough to get their charges reduced or even dropped.”

Jehan shot a nervous glance at Joly, who was stone-faced, and cleared his throat. “That sounds like a great idea, Grantaire,” he said warmly, giving Grantaire a tentative smile. “It’s…it’s really wonderful to hear that you want to work on something — dare I say it? — radical.”

“Well, not just me,” Grantaire said quickly, blushing slightly. “Bahorel’s agreed to help, finally putting that almost pre-law degree that he bitched about so much to work. And…” He hesitated, darting a look at Joly, who hadn’t moved, but barreled onward. “And I was hoping maybe you two would consider helping as well.”

At that, Joly looked sharply at Grantaire, something flaring in his eyes before dulling into a carefully constructed mask. Jehan glanced at Joly again and reached out to grab his hand. “We’ll think about it,” Jehan said quickly, flashing Grantaire another small smile. “Thanks for thinking of us, and we’ll let you know if we can help, alright?”

Grantaire nodded, though he felt a small pang of disappointment. He had thought that after all this time, perhaps Joly would be…well, that didn’t matter now. “Not a problem,” he said easily.

Because it wasn’t. Whatever Joly decided, Grantaire still had work to do.

* * *

 

In the car on the way home from the restaurant, Jehan could sense from Joly’s slouch in the passenger seat that his boyfriend was upset. Joly was gazing out the car window, watching the lights of the city flash by as Prouvaire drove back to their apartment.

“Is everything okay, Joly?” Prouvaire asked as they pulled up in front of their apartment, a nervous quaver in his voice as he killed the engine.

“Why does he keep wanting to bring up the past?” Joly snapped. “The bombing happened almost four years ago now. Isn’t it about time we all moved on?” He opened the car door and slammed it behind him, stalking toward the house.

Jehan followed him slowly, his expression troubled. “I think this  _is_ Grantaire’s way of moving on,” he answered as they went inside. “And he thinks amnesty is the right thing to do. So do I. So do you — at least I thought you did.”

“In theory, I guess I am. But I just don’t see how it changes anything for Grantaire,” Joly pointed out stubbornly as he walked into the kitchen. “Does he really think Enjolras is going to just come home from Canada and things are going to be like they were before? That it will be like nothing ever happened?”

“I think that’s the thought what keeps Grantaire going sometimes,” Prouvaire admitted. “And if I can help him with that, damnit, I want to help him with that. Why don’t you want to help Grantaire?”

Joly turned on Jehan, his eyes flashing. “Has it occurred to you that maybe I don’t want them to come home?” he hissed. “That I’d be perfectly happy if the three of them rotted in the frozen tundra forever? I’ve moved on with my life, Jehan. You remember what it was like before? Before I could finally sleep through the night without waking up in a cold sweat?  Having nightmares about the explosion or about prison or about Combe—” He stopped abruptly, not wanting to utter his former boyfriend’s name.

“Say it, Joly,” Jehan prodded him gently. “Say his name.”

Joly slumped into a chair, tears stinging his eyelids. “I don’t want to say his name,” he said. “I don’t want to think about him, or talk about him. And I don’t want to see him ever again, okay?” He balled up his fists and rubbed his eyes.

“You don’t ever have to see him again,” Prouvaire said, kneeling in front of him. “Just because he gets amnesty doesn’t mean he’ll come back here. Or that you need to see him. Unless of course you want to,” he said, pulling back to look at Joly’s face.

Joly shook his head violently. “I have you — that’s all I ever want,” he said, his voice breaking.

Jehan pushed Joly’s hair out of his face gently. “I know that,” he reassured him. “I love you, Jolllly. You mean more to me than anything in this world,” he said, kissing him on the forehead. “But you know it’s the right thing to do.” he continued. “Not just for Grantaire’s peace of mind — but for all the men who fled to Canada. And yes, for Enjolras, and for Courfeyrac, and—”

“And for Combeferre,” Joly interrupted, his voice breaking as he said it.

“And for Combeferre,” Jehan repeated, stroking Joly’s face. “Look, you don’t need to do anything, Jolllly. I’ll work with Grantaire and Bahorel. I have some time this summer. It will be good for all of us, I think. And if we succeed — and they do come home — we’ll deal with it then, okay? You and me, together.”

Joly nodded and clasped his hand tightly. “Together,” he whispered, as Jehan embraced him.

* * *

 

When he had thought about fighting for amnesty for Enjolras, Combeferre, and Courfeyrac, Grantaire had honestly thought that it would be…well, not  _easy_ , per se, but certainly he hadn’t anticipated what should have been a side project stretching into a multiyear legislative campaign.

Of course, he wasn’t sure what he should’ve expected. Even when the war finally ended officially with the fall of Saigon in 1975, draft evaders could still be prosecuted, let alone those who had fled from radical actions. Politicians didn’t want to act on it or suggest any pardons or amnesty, despite the almost universal disdain for the war. They got unexpected help from Bossuet, who, despite selling out to the man, understood and agreed with their efforts, and offered them what pro bono services he could from his office in Washington.

When Carter pardoned the draft-dodgers in January ‘77, Grantaire rejoiced, knowing that this could ease the process for amnesty. He met with politicians ranging from local representatives to US Senators, all to plead Enjolras, Combeferre, and Courfeyrac’s case.

More than once during the several years he spent working on this, he was hauled in for questioning about their whereabouts. Luckily, he didn’t have to lie, telling the police, the FBI, whomever was doing the questioning, “I don’t know where they are. I’m not in contact with them. I’m acting on their behalf without their knowledge.”

At first, repeating those words felt hollow, reminding him that Enjolras and the others didn’t know and likely didn’t care what he was doing. But everytime he began to feel that way, Bahorel or Jehan or even Joly would remind him that he wasn’t doing this for recognition from Enjolras. This wasn’t about that. This was about doing what he thought was right.

And then in late 1977, almost ten years to the day since Grantaire and Enjolras broke up, since Feuilly died, since Enjolras, Combeferre, and Courfeyrac went through with the plan that would irrevocably change everyone’s lives, Bahorel called Grantaire and asked him if he wanted to get together for dinner. His voice sounded strange, and Grantaire asked, “Is everything ok?”

“Everything’s fine,” Bahorel replied blithely, though he still sounded strained. “Tonight works for you, though?”

It did, and Grantaire arrived at Bahorel’s not knowing what to expect, met by Joly and Jehan, who seemed just as confused. When they all sat down at the table, Bahorel was fiddling with something in his lap, and when he looked up at them, he seemed almost nervous. “I got something in the mail today,” he said. “I don’t know how they heard about it or if they have a contact still around here or what, but…” He set a folded piece of paper on the table. “I got a letter from Courfeyrac.”

The silence was palpable, Joly, Jehan, and Grantaire all staring at the letter as if it might explode. “Does it say anything about Enjolras?” Grantaire asked breathlessly, trying not to sound too eager.

Next to Jehan, Joly had gone very still, and he asked quietly, “Or anything about Combeferre?”

Bahorel’s expression was unreadable, and he pushed the letter into the middle of the table, directly between the two of them. “Read it and see.”

Joly and Grantaire’s eyes met, and after a long moment, Joly smiled slightly, reaching for Jehan’s hand and inclining his head minutely towards Grantaire, who nodded back in understanding. Joly didn’t need this; Grantaire still did — Grantaire always would.

He took a deep breath and reached for the paper. The words wouldn’t change anything, but it didn’t stop his heart from speeding up as he unfolded it with shaking fingers.

And he began to read the words that he had waited almost ten years to finally see.


End file.
